Their profession is their surname. Three generations of Chitrakars have devoted their lives to studying, practicing, and refining Nepali art. At 78, Madan Chitrakar is still in his studio, brush in hand in front of canvases. Born into a family of artists, his swas tied to art even before his birth in 1945. Madan was born a month after the death of his artist grandfather Shiva Das Chitrakar who painted images of gods and goddesses on paper, cloth, the walls and doors of temples, as well as on the wheels and legs of chariots during festivals. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/painting-a-painter">Painting a painter</a>, Shristi Karki Shiva Das’ son Tej Bahadur grew up watching his father sketch and paint. And Tej Bahadur’s son Madan says, “We are not artists just because we are Chitrakars. This profession needs dedication.” Tej Bahadur painted not only religious imagery but murals of animals, people, and nature at Singha Darbar, impressing Prime Minister Chandra Shumsher Rana, who sent him to the Government College of Fine Art in Calcutta. While in India, Tej Bahadur sent oil and watercolour portraits back home, including those of Chandra Shumsher and King Tribhuvan. Before him, Nepal's aristocracy used to commission British artists to paint their portraits. Tej Bahadur is the first Nepali graduate of modern art and is credited with introducing Western academic fundamentals into Nepali art at a time when it was limited to traditional art forms. Upon his return, Tej Bahadur became an art teacher at Darbar High School and died in 1971, aged 73. Madan Chitrakar got a degree from Bombay’s J J School of Art in 1963 and returned to Nepal to make cartoon-style illustrations in textbooks. He retired in 1998 after 20 years at the Tourism Ministry. He designed the logo for Visit Nepal 1999, and says: “What can be created quickly on InDesign now used to take many hours of measuring-by-hand and painstaking drawing back then.” Madan continues to make a living off of his art at 78. He has painted mountains and nature, villages that have become cities, and the history of Nepali society.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240426060420_08c5e22d5588fabf05a44918e2ded2a64d2f8035ab3efef7299b62e8153651e5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20240426060420_08c5e22d5588fabf05a44918e2ded2a64d2f8035ab3efef7299b62e8153651e5" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="The house of Chitrakars Page 9 NT #1209"><figcaption>Madan Chitrakar's painting of a Tamang couple he encountered during one of his travels. Photo: SUMAN NEPALI</figcaption></figure>  Some of his art is political. In 2002, he painted four empty blood-soaked boxes lying in the middle of a seemingly endless road, which he titled The Settlement. The 36x30 inch acrylic on canvas depicted the conflict years. “At that time, the only news was of death, even as entire communities fled their homes to escape the violence,” recalls Madan. “There was a lot of fear and loneliness, which was what I conveyed through the painting. These days, Madan paints mythical lions, using the animal as a medium to showcase emotions of ferocity, peace, anger, mischief. There is a belief in the Newa community that drawing lions cures the body of ailments. “There is still a lot of work to be done in modern art in Nepal, which is what I remind myself and other artists,” he says. “We need to move beyond just painting different versions of Lord Buddha meditating.” Madan Chitrakar’s skill and passion for art has deep inter-generational roots. He says: “Like my father, I will continue to paint until my hands stop working and my imagination no longer runs wild.”

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The house of Chitrakars

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f569c7e80680e0af45djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2046" height="1377"/><figcaption>Lambe. All photos: BHARAT RAI.</figcaption></figure>Bharat Rai's ongoing exhibition ‘Whistle Blower’ at Ekantakuna's <a href="https://windhorseartgallery.com">Wind Horse Gallery</a> is a quasi-surreal take on the world of tourism and mountaineering. His first solo show of 35 paintings do not show Himalayan peaks but the often-overlooked state of tourism, modernism and consumerism.You will find few mountains here. The white background in the canvases is the closest thing to snow and clouds. The real protagonists are the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Equus-in-brick-kilns-kathmandu,4085">mules, donkeys and the burden on their backs</a>. We can almost hear their rusty bells punctuating the silence of their unsung endurance.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f599c7e80680e0af45ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1420" height="1437"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>One of the first paintings that comes into view as visitors climb the staircase to the vast gallery is called Lale: a brown mule leaping with its tail up in the air. Its dark, melancholic eyes gaze ahead as the blue sacks on its back weigh it down. A long rope attaches the mule to a sealed Coca Cola bottle with crystallised rocks inside.The artwork is striking, and whimsical — a leaping animal tied to the ground by an empty bottle of soda. The bells around the neck and shoulders in the colourful harness look harmless at first, and we instantly recognise that these are the beasts of burden that make trekking and mountaineering possible, allowing those selfies on Kala Patar and summit certificates.But what of Lale, frozen as it tries to jump and break free, despite being held fast to the ground? Another mule, Dhurbe, is leaping off the back of a blue pick-up truck. Yet another looks dolefully at a miniature version of itself lying on its back with legs flailing upwards.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f5d9c7e80680e0af45fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1786" height="1482"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>It may not be immediately noticeable, but the atmosphere of the paintings is indeed that of a false levity, draped in a foreboding silence of suffering.Silence pervades Rai's art: silence not volunteered but forced, and silence caught in motion. Rai's muses are mules and donkeys — always in the act of moving, whether away, towards, or in circles. They are flying, rolling and dancing even. Their desired destination is up the trail, but they appear to be protesting through their contortions — and their silence.Rai grew up around these equine heroes, spending over a decade in their company. His family profession was moving cargo on mule trains up and down the Solu Khumbu trail before motor cars and jeeps took over. He has shared his feelings and worries more with mules than humans, and this very empathy influences his art.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f609c7e80680e0af460jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1863" height="1536"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>'Most visitors and strangers would tell me about the creatures', writes Rai in his statement, 'saying that they would cry if they did not get heavy loads!' But, as evidenced by his paintings, the mules do not look happy to be carrying all those sacks and cylinders.On the contrary, they are tired, beaten and eager to break free of their tethers. The animals have names, distinct characters and personalities. In a way these downtrodden animals are symbolic of the silent disenfranchised citizens of our country. Abused, exploited, excluded, collectively derided.The effect is twofold. While the animals are taken as symbols of simplicity and foolishness (and thus abused), by using them as metaphors Rai draws our attention also to the cruelty and micro-aggression directed towards the people living on the margins.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f649c7e80680e0af461jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1484" height="2048"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161156/636d1f689c7e80680e0af462jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1484" height="2048">Melody of Shovel (left) and Hero (right)Some paintings depict items scattered around mountaineering camps: steel plates, cylinders, rusty wheelbarrows, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-building-a-highway-to-everest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a yellow excavator</a> and a sewing machine practically falling apart. One canvas has a rolled-up roti held together by a safety pin. There is a larger statement here against the recklessness, entitlement and egotism of mountain visitors.Despite these undercurrents, ‘Whistle Blowers’ is not a pessimistic show. It is more a call to action to be more mindful, more conscious. Our four-legged mountain friends are not indentured servants, but beings with dreams and hopes of their own.We are conditioned to imagine nobility in horses and ridicule donkeys. Rai subverts these notions by inviting us to look into the eyes of mules as muses.‘Whistle Blowers’ by Bharat RaiWind Horse Gallery, Bhanimandal-Ekantakuna Road, Lalitpur10am-6pm (closed on Mondays)Limited visitors in the hall. Masks mandatory.Till 17 January 2022.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/on-screen-mountains/">On-screen mountains</a>, Sahina Shrestha<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/what-next-for-reinhold-messner/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">What next for Reinhald Messner?</a>, Kunda Dixit

Ashish Dhakal

Muses of the mountains

<img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3a99c7e80680e096668jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>"I can’t help myself when I see flowers,” says <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Planting-painting,3224" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">botanical artist and illustrator Neera Joshi</a>. “ I have to paint them.”Outside her studio, the spring garden is blooming with bright pink azaleas, orange daisies, and lush calla lilies. They were splashes of colour against a city shrouded in smoke this week. Inside, Joshi sits cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by framed <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/a-new-york-miracle/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">botanical artwork</a>. On Tuesday, 32 of her paintings will be on display at Siddhartha Art Gallery for a three-week-long exhibition supported by the Nepal Britain Society.“Many people do not know what botanical art is because they have never seen it,” explains Joshi. “It is a means visual communication that will enable Nepalis to recognise and appreciate our rich and varied biodiversity.” Indeed, the relatively unknown art form typically comprises botanical illustration and botanical art. While both styles need to be scientifically accurate, and require equipment different from other art forms, botanical drawings are more scientific, the figures need to be precise and to scale, and they contribute to scientific studies and plant identification.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/years-of-botanical-art,3222" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Botanical art</a>, meanwhile, allows for more focus on the aesthetics and the creative process. Joshi plays to both of those styles in her artwork. Half of her collection for the exhibition includes flowers native to Nepal— from wildflowers of Champadevi done in greens and browns to the soft pink Luculia gratissima and Himalayan blue poppies. The other half are exotic plants, ranging from orchids in pinks and yellows to kalakaua, magnolias, and more. <img width="1250" height="1667" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3ab9c7e80680e096669jpeg.jpg" alt="">Joshi experiments with multiple mediums in <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=13501#.YGqSNy2B0b0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">her artwork</a> while balancing scientific accuracy and artistic expression in her paintings. One of her pieces of mahonia berries, called jamaane mandro in Nepal, is a mixture of watercolour and pen-and-ink, while some of her pieces are half watercolour and half pencil sketch, with a series of smaller, more detailed, and scale illustration of the plant, depicting every stage of its life.[video width="1920" height="1080" mp4="https://www.nepalitimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/2-2.mp4"]Video: SHANTA BUDHA MAGAR “There is little room for free expression, freestyle or imagination with botanical art, and there are lots of rules and regulations,” says Joshi.She prefers being in nature and doing live paintings, and recently trekked up to 3,500m in Gorkha to study flora in previously unexplored forests. Although botanical artists also work with herbariums, a collection of preserved plant specimens, she usually documents flowers live in her field sketchbook, later referring to them to translate her art to watercolour. If the plant is small and manageable, Joshi brings them back home to study.“My mother wanted me to become a doctor,” Joshi says, smiling. “But I studied botany.” Joshi got her Master’s degree in Botany from Tribhuvan University in 1995.Although her father, Ramananda Joshi, was a noted artist, it was only in 1996 that she considered art as a career after her Master’s. “Becoming an artist had never  crossed my mind, although I was raised surrounded by art,” she says.[video width="1920" height="1080" mp4="https://www.nepalitimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/1.mp4"]Video: SHANTA BUDHA MAGAR For picking up the paintbrush relatively later in life, Joshi honed her skill swiftly over the next few years and had her work on exhibit for the first time in 1999.“Botanical art is a scientific discipline, and as such, one cannot just paint whatever they feel like,— the portraits of plants have to be meticulous,” says Sangeeta Thapa of Siddhartha Art Gallery. “Neera is among the very few botanical artists in Nepal, and she stands out from the crowd of contemporary artists because she’s doing something very unique and something she’s really passionate about.”Her work has been on display at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and more recently at the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/nepals-botanical-art-in-wuhan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Wuhan International Botanical Art Exhibition</a>, where three of her paintings were exhibited virtually, owing to the Covid pandemic. <img width="1250" height="833" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3af9c7e80680e09666ajpeg.jpg" alt="">“Most Nepalis don’t know indigenous flowers from exotic ones, which is especially concerning at a time when conservation of biodiversity is so important,” says the artist, who also trains students and budding Nepali artists at her Studio Petals.“I hope this exhibition will provide exposure to botanical art and generate interest among young Nepalis,” she says. “This will help in education, conservation and research."Neera Joshi’s collection of botanical art, The Beauty of Nepal’s Flora, will be exhibited at Siddhartha Gallery from 6-26 April.

Shristi Karki

The anatomy of a flower

<figure><img width="1280" height="588" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be7769c7e80680e087800jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photos: JEROME EDOU</figcaption></figure>Jerome Edou’s monochrome ink exhibition A Single Brushstroke marks the first physical exhibition at Siddhartha Art Gallery in nine months. Nepali Times got a glimpse as Edou and director/curator Sangeeta Thapa were busy making final preparations ahead of its opening on 11 December.Chan paintings or Zen in Japanese, are inspired by the Chinese Contemplative Buddhist Chan school and are characterised by the Qi—the Sanskrit prana that means vital energy— the simplicity, the suggestion, and the emptiness of life and nature. With only a few brushstrokes, Chan painters seek to express the inspiration of nature through their paintings rather than imitating and reproducing nature, or delving into much detail and technicality. The lack of colours plays into the simplicity of the painting, as the monochrome style removes all noises from the artwork. Painters use a lot of empty space to visually express the silence of nature.Chan painters use Chinese paper, water, ink, and about 10 different brushes—made from different animal hair. “Brushes made from goat hair are almost watery and not very strong, unlike those made from the hair of wild horses,” says Edou. Chan painters also make their own ink, which the Chinese papers absorb very quickly. “It’s a complicated process,” he adds. <figure><img width="1280" height="764" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be7789c7e80680e087801jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>There is no discernible style or theme to Edou’s paintings—he paints brooding cliffs, beautiful flowers, sprawling landscapes. An entire wall is dedicated to bamboo paintings. Bamboo shoot contains a fragment of the universe, say a couple of his paintings. In fact, bamboo is an integral part of training in Chan paintings. “In Zen painting, the bamboo is really the first exercise that shows the subtlety, simplicity, and the resilience of life. Some painters have been doing bamboo all their lives. I love it because it has a certain magnificence and simplicity to it,” says Edou. “Before moving up to birds, or landscape, you constantly paint what we call the Four Gentlemen, which are chrysanthemum, bamboo, plum trees, and orchids.” <img width="608" height="1280" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be77b9c7e80680e087802jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figure><img width="1000" height="1119" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be77d9c7e80680e087803jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Years worth of work are on display across two floors of the gallery. Edou jokes that it took him 15 years, as well as 10 minutes to complete all his paintings. “15 years of practice and 10 minutes to actually do the painting, the paintings themselves are done very quickly, but they require extensive training.” he explains.Edou studied Buddhism intensively and is a translator of Tibetan texts and teachings. But hadn’t delved into paintings until he was 55 when discovered Chan paintings by chance in France as he was exploring Chinese calligraphy. For the next 10 years, he learned to make Chan paintings at the International Academy of Ink Painting in South France. After graduating in 2018, he began teaching ink painting himself. A symbol stamped in red is striking against the minimalist, contemplative, sometimes bleak monochrome of Edou’s paintings. It is his seal, inspired from an 11th century Chinese practice. He has added calligraphy too in some of his works. He has built his crevice of a rock, his mind is at large, says one artwork—a Chen saying in western calligraphy. Going to see the silence—another one says in French. “I was trying to see if it works, and if there is a style to be found there,” he adds.One of the paintings that he did at the academy has seven seals, put there by his friends and teachers. “It was partly a joke, but it was also recognition of our achievements that we put in each other’s paintings,” he notes. <img width="1000" height="1792" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be7809c7e80680e087804jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="1000" height="1103" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be7839c7e80680e087805jpeg.jpg" alt="">But why aren’t the seals stamped to the back of the painting instead of the front? Edou smiles and thinks for a moment. “For that I have no answer,” he says. “For one thing, the seals become a part of the painting, and for another, the precise pattern makes a contrast to the suggestive nature of the paintings.”A painting of Buddhist prayer flags titled Gone With the Wind is very close to his heart. One can almost hear the flags fluttering silently in a breeze. “I never managed to do another one like this,” Edou reflects. “I like it because it is my own inspiration, not something I reproduced.”Edou reflects on the small community of Chan painters, and the relative anonymity of the art form. “This practice is outside the mainstream,” he says, and that the idea was never to be a professional or to make a living out of it. “We are often called eccentrics, and cut off from academic circles. But eccentricity means thinking outside the box, being more concerned about inspiration and less about the technique or style. And I like being eccentric,” he adds, laughing.Despite the Covid crisis still looming large, Sangeeta Thapa is set on going ahead with socially distanced exhibition after being shut for almost a year. “If I’m not hopeful, I might as well shut down this place and wait until the vaccine is here. But people have started to go to malls and restaurants," she says. "Why should art have to suffer? The art must survive. Livelihoods must go on.”  Jerome Edou's A Single Brushstroke opens at Siddhartha Art Gallery on 11 December and ends on 10 January.

A Single Brushstroke

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be68a9c7e80680e0877adjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="965"/><figcaption>HA Oldfield's 1850 painting of the British Residency in Kathmandu (now the Indian Embassy) showing the empty, barren landscape of Nagarjun in the mid-nineteenth century. Collection: BRITISH LIBRARY</figcaption></figure>Back in the day when my walls were empty, I used to buy old paintings and photos with whatever cash I had, rummaging around in Darbar Marg antique shops and Thamel bookstores. Particularly fruitful were the exhibitions at the then-newly created Vajra Hotel.I picked up several pictures from some of the whacky international cast of characters with strange names like Firefly and Tango who congregated in the roof-top meditation pagoda with its aspirational view of Swayambhunath.The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q=vajra+naga+theatre" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q%3Dvajra%2Bnaga%2Btheatre&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG1eRsvJ_zlmKiKQ_VRkQMrnxybVw">Vajra’s Naga Theatre</a> troupe is still going strong, led by the indefatigable <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=11646#.XBcsidIza70" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D11646%23.XBcsidIza70&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGPdeFJtQtUF3bQyi0ji--7_YsW8w">Sabine</a> Lehman and <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/The-guardian-of-the-shadows-%20G%C3%B6tz%20Hagm%C3%BCller,3352" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/The-guardian-of-the-shadows-%2520G%25C3%25B6tz%2520Hagm%25C3%25BCller,3352&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG8TcmWZr3jgm0XyRMXnyP4tvkM2Q">Ludmilla</a> Hungerhuber, but long gone are the ‘scientists’ from the US Institute of Ecotechnics, paid for by a visionary Texan squillionaire who funded marine research vessels and a futurist biosphere experiment to save the planet.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be68d9c7e80680e0877aejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2027" height="2628"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be6909c7e80680e0877afjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2194" height="3008"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be6939c7e80680e0877b0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3561" height="2415"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Several of our <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/business/no-tiger-no-mountain/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/business/no-tiger-no-mountain/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFORa7G-RfxHMaCyQzw3lpHZfvN9A">Tiger Mountain</a> staff, including a Sherpa and a Tharu, travelled to the US to be sealed into the massive biodiversity dome as part of their mysterious innovations, surviving to tell the tale. ‘Pursuing the harmony between ecology and technology since 1973’ - I never could fully grasp what they were all about. ‘If you are too stupid to understand, than you don’t deserve to know’ pronounced <a href="http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12199947000/Luther-Gerald-Jerstad-1936-1998" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12199947000/Luther-Gerald-Jerstad-1936-1998&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFsCcB-VDBjniIZFGkZCYvYYD3Xrw">Lute Jerstad</a>, America’s first Everest summiteer, giving up on me.But they were an entertaining bunch, and in the early 1980s the Vajra art enthusiasts sold me wondrous works by M M Poon and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q=chandra+man+maskey" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q%3Dchandra%2Bman%2Bmaskey&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH4im6nKtksdazCFrl4Y4tr6_xLQw">Chandra Man Maskey</a> for what seems today like an embarrassingly small amount of rupees. I also acquired a couple of contemporary portraits of Jung Bahadur, one with three of his many wives, but perhaps my most precious find was a watercolour of Bhadgoan Darbar showing Nepal’s first glass window pane, beneath which red-jacketed troops paraded on inspection.It was allegedly painted around 1850 by pioneer Nepali artist, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q=rajman+chitrakar" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q%3Drajman%2Bchitrakar&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGeQTJPbOpenoUoupvlRLEe4eQ5YA">Rajman Singh Chitrakar</a>, pupil of the series of artistically inclined Brits based in the British Residency in Lainchaur - <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q=Brian+Houghton+Hodgson" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q%3DBrian%2BHoughton%2BHodgson&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNERq84lvDzeUcLI2_TF9zCE2FL9Yg">Brian Houghton Hodgson</a>, Henry Montgomery Lawrence and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q=Henry+Ambrose+Oldfield" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/nepali-times-search/?q%3DHenry%2BAmbrose%2BOldfield&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEazMGNa0GHAznAiS8DiYLXKGEydw">Henry Ambrose Oldfield</a>.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be6979c7e80680e0877b1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1325" height="1500"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be69a9c7e80680e0877b2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="868"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Captivated by the historical insights that these early English-style pictures promised, my investigations took me to musty London archives and basement reading rooms where the collections are now stored. With the Royal Geographical Society, we selected four from amongst their collection of H A Oldfield treasures to be printed as postcards sold in Kathmandu in the early 1980s. My favourites were the ones of the Nepal army marching through the <a href="https://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_245279/Dr.-H.A.-Oldfield/Soldiers-invading-Tibet-from-Nepal-entrance-to-the-Keerung-Pass.-The-plain-is-part-of-the-Town-of-Keerung-with-the-Valley-of-Pauring-Tiar-and-the-Buoria-Gondu-river-May-1855" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_245279/Dr.-H.A.-Oldfield/Soldiers-invading-Tibet-from-Nepal-entrance-to-the-Keerung-Pass.-The-plain-is-part-of-the-Town-of-Keerung-with-the-Valley-of-Pauring-Tiar-and-the-Buoria-Gondu-river-May-1855&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622265000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEKkTG-AfL2kfB3Ex4Y6CaUQUfavg">‘Keerung Pass’</a>, invading Tibet under cobalt blue skies and fanciful white peaks.This era of Western realism paintings started with the polymath Brian Hodgson, an East India Company official who served in Kathmandu for over 20 years from the time of Bhimsen Thapa in 1820 until 1843. Hodgson used the extensive leisure time afforded by his job to make the first systematic study of Nepal’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/an-antelope-and-an-artist/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/an-antelope-and-an-artist/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622266000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFpGG6E0Svx0dU2jXaGZ6TkK0iD8A">fauna, flora, religions</a>, culture and languages. In order to illustrate his findings, he trained the artist Rajman Singh Chitrakar, introducing him to the European principles of camera lucida, ‘light and shade and perspectives’.For someone steeped in Nepal’s rich heritage and the traditions of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=14649" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D14649&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1607323622266000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG5AQA4vLkLgnHwPTmyej_Vowu1mw">poubha</a> art, Rajman’s drawings indicate a major shift in style. Kanak Mani Dixit, curator of the influential 1999 Oldfield exhibition in Yala Maya Kendra at Patan Dhoka, credits Rajman as being Nepal’s first ever landscape and architectural painter, and his work was recognised by the world of art and science in Europe at a time when photography was in its infancy.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be69e9c7e80680e0877b3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1082"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be6a29c7e80680e0877b4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1082"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Rajman Singh was part of the extensive Chitrakar clan (meaning ‘painter’ in Nepali) whose successive generations since the Malla reign had recorded royal and Rana court activities, firstly in the form of paintings and drawings, and then in a vast collection of photographs, many engraved onto delicate glass plates.This wide array of images includes diplomatic missions, cultural events, portraiture of the elite and everyday ordinary life, capturing an era of extravagant autocratic Rana rule whose state policy of ‘implacable xenophobia’ prevented foreign penetration and influence. As a direct descendent, Cristeena Chitrakar explains: “My ancestors’ images explore visual narratives and historical accounts. The photographs create memories and preserve the past.”Kanak Dixit writes: ‘It was Hodgson who provided Rajman with the graphite pencil, probably also coaching him on the novel techniques required to realistically illustrate landscapes, architecture and objects of natural history… If it were not for Rajman, we would have had to rely only on the arriving Westerners who happened to paint, including the doctor in the British Residency, Henry Ambrose Oldfield, whose watercolours have been useful in reconstructing several lost structures.’Referring to him as ‘my Bauddha citrakar’, British Resident Brian Hodgson drafted Rajman Singh and his kinsmen to illustrate the broad range of disciplines which absorbed him. On departure he bequeathed Rajman and his team to work on drawings for his successor Henry Lawrence, then to Dr H A Oldfield, the Residency surgeon who lived in Kathmandu from 1850 until 1863.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be6a69c7e80680e0877b5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1094"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Like his predecessors in their isolated outpost beyond the empire and forbidden to venture outside the Valley rim, Dr Oldfield developed an interest in all things Nepali, spending his time on Buddhism, Nepali history, ethnography and the caste system. He and his wife Margaret were accomplished amateur artists in their own right, their valuable contribution consisting of hundreds of watercolours that shed light in meticulous detail on the architecture, landscape and people of the Kathmandu Valley at that time.These pictures chronicle the comparatively dilapidated state of historic buildings, temples and stupas in the nineteenth century Valley, and the surrounding hills are startlingly naked and denuded in comparison to the thick cover on today’s reforested slopes.Dr Mark Watson, Himalayan botanical historian, writes: ‘Henry Oldfield is well-known to students of Nepali history for his 1880 posthumously published, richly illustrated, two-volume classic: Sketches from Nipal. Oldfield got on well with Maharaja Jung Bahadur, so much so that in 1855 he was allowed to accompany the Nepali army to the northern Rasuwa Gadhi frontier when Nepal declared war on Tibet – a remarkable privilege for a foreigner. The British Library and Royal Geographical Society hold significant collections of their work, including pictures by Nepali master artist Rajman Singh Chitrakar who worked closely with them.’<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181140/636be6a99c7e80680e0877b6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1155"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The dazzling November weather accentuated the scarlet poinsettia and orange marigolds in the British Cemetery last month when I visited with a red poppy in my lapel, wandering amongst the headstones on immaculately manicured grass beneath an Oldfield-blue sky. One of their six children is buried here, and I found the small, square column with a white marble plaque marking the grave of Philip Henry Oldfield, toddler son aged only 17 months when he died in August 1861.The site is protected within a low, rectangular, stone wall along with an identical monument for Alice Irwin, the new-born baby daughter of the British Commandant of the Escort who in 1859 had lasted only 13 days. It is said that the Maharaja Jung Bahadur Rana himself was so touched by the tragic loss of life so young that he requested the surrounding walls be built to provide shelter for the babies’ graves.

Lisa Choegyal

Nepal's history through art

<figure><img width="640" height="480" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7609c7e80680e07377cjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Puneeta Sharma working on the restoration of the 160-year-old water colour on paper painting by Rajman Singh Chitrakar of a Tibetan antelope at the Zoological Society London. Photo: ZSL</figcaption></figure>A painting of a rare Tibetan antelope by a Nepali artist gifted by Jang Bahadur Rana to the British resident in Kathmandu in the mid-19th century has come alive thanks to the painstaking work of a British restoration artist of Indian descent.The story of the 160-year-old painting from Nepal, and how it came to be stored at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), is an intriguing tale of the convergence of history, art, zoology and politics.    In 2014, Puneeta Sharma was looking for a graduation project at the Camberwell College of Arts in London and was going through the ZSL’s archives when, in a collection of wildlife art from Britain’s colonial possessions, she came across the painting of a chiru, the Tibetan antelope prized for its wool.The fine shatoosh fur from the necks of baby antelopes is used to weave the finest pashmina shawls which are so valuable that the graceful animal that grazes on the western Tibetan Plateau has been hunted almost to extinction, because it takes the fur of four baby antelopes to make a single shawl.There is even a theory that the Anglo-Nepal War of 1814-16 was fought because the East India Company <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/The-Pashmina-War,1024" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/The-Pashmina-War,1024&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598339584191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFtSQoT_2q6Ng1oacQhLVv3fbs8tQ">wanted access to the high Himalayan passes</a> to Tibet that were then controlled by the Gorkha Empire.     “It was a natural urge that made me want to preserve this work of art,” Sharma recalls. “Much of it was because the artwork belonged to Nepal, a close neighbour of my parents’ country.” <figure><img width="640" height="846" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7629c7e80680e07377djpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The gauche painting was water colour on Nepali lokta paper, measuring 83.5 x 63.5cm and was deteriorating with age. Even more intriguing were two inscriptions on the painting. One was a Devnagari caption, and the other in English at the back read: ‘Birds and mammals done by my painter. Sent to me by Jung Bahadur.’This was in the handwriting of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3246#.X0JVIegzbb0" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D3246%23.X0JVIegzbb0&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598339584191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGDCULcUn7XNe5Gp4WiPyaGS59Ggw">Brian Houghton Hodgson (1820-43)</a> who was the first British Resident in Kathmandu, a keen naturalist and who served as one of the earliest links between Kathmandu Valley and the outside world.Hodgson spent more of his time immersing himself into Kathmandu’s culture, indigenous inhabitants and researching Nepal’s incredible biodiversity than being a listening post for the Company. At his own expense he trained a group of Nepali research assistants to collect plant and animal specimen, preserve <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/years-of-botanical-art,3222" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/years-of-botanical-art,3222&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598339584191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGDc-zLRAuxxwtkPFMh0Z6soHxa3Q">and paint them</a>.One of his apprentices was <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/pencilling-in-kathmandu-rajman-singh-chitrakar,3379" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/pencilling-in-kathmandu-rajman-singh-chitrakar,3379&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598339584191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEngcrxOm4dW0b8IAvH6lMvIfCp8Q">Rajman Singh Chitrakar</a>, whose pencil sketches are an important pictorial record of 19th century Kathmandu Valley. As it turns out, the Devnagari caption below the painting was by Rajman Chitrakar.Puneeta at first thought it might be Hindi, and sought the help of her parents who had left India to settle in UK in 1970, but they could not make sense of it. Her grandmother in India could not decipher it either. Then she approached her uncle Major General Vijay Kumar Dutt, who had served with Gorkha troops in the Indian Army.  He translated the Nepali sentence roughly to read: ‘The deer is roaming in the king’s jungle.” <figure><img width="640" height="481" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7649c7e80680e07377ejpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="800" height="66" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7669c7e80680e07377fjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>It turns out that although the painting was by a Nepali artist, the chiru antelope was not from Nepal at all. In his book the Prisoner of Kathmandu: Brian Hodgson in Nepal, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=9612#.X0JV7egzbb0" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D9612%23.X0JV7egzbb0&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598339584191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGd29Ll_j7QzNET7VA_MswIeJ6t-g">Charles Allen</a> (who died last week at the age of 80) says the antelope was in fact reared at a monastery in Tibet of the Tashi Lama, the second spiritual leader after the Dalai Lama.The chiru was gifted to the king of Nepal, who gave it to Prime Minister Bhimsen Thapa, who then passed it on to Brian Hudgson because of his interest in exotic Himalayan wildlife. But the antelope never got used to the heat in Kathmandu and died within a month at the British Residency in Lazimpat. Hodgson then sent the fur and horns of the animal to Clarke Abel at the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta. <figure><img width="979" height="1307" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141112/636ba7679c7e80680e073780jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Some time before it died, it appears Rajman Chitrakar painted the antelope. And from Hodgson’s writing at its back one can surmise that Jang Bahadur gifted this painting and many others to the British Resident, with whom he was close.  The chiru was one of the first mammals that Hodgson introduced into the world, personally naming the species, the Patholops hodgsonii in 1834. According to ornithologist <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/protecting-the-last-home-of-the-spiny-babbler/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/protecting-the-last-home-of-the-spiny-babbler/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598339584191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG2nYEAz1_g9UsEf7lpHasNECKgqg">Carol Inskipp</a> it is believed that Hodgson transported specimens of 9,512 species of animals and birds from Nepal and Darjeeling to the UK. Among them, 124 species had never before been classified.Hemsagar Baral, who represents ZSL in Nepal says that much of what we know today about Nepal’s biodiversity is still from Hodgson’s records in the 1830s, and the drawings and paintings done by his Nepali assistants. In fact, even though it has not been sighted in Nepal for 200 years, the chiru is recorded in the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act of Nepal as an indigenous endangered species.For a more exact translation of Rajman Chitrakar’s inscription in the back of his painting, we approached archivist Shamik Mishra at the Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya in Kathmandu. Mishra’s translation is somewhat different from that done by Puneeta Sharma’s military uncle: ‘This chiru animal lives in the snow in the jungles of China’s Thiri state.’   <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg-LHlPuaE0" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DRg-LHlPuaE0&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598339584191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEiDIkBYP0fuH4vVXl9GiOp_oQixg">Puneeta Sharma now works as a conservator in the Royal Collection Trust</a> at Windsor Castle. Her thesis titled The Convergence of a Watercolour and Gauche Painting 1840 has recorded the painstaking restoration of the painting that was framed, and moved from the ZSL’s warehouse to a pride of place on the wall of its library.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg-LHlPuaE0&amp;feature=emb_logoShe says: “Many visitors are attracted by this beautiful painting, and 160 years after it was created, Rajman Chitrakar’s painting is still introducing Nepal to the world.”Read also:<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/pencilling-in-kathmandu-rajman-singh-chitrakar,3379" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/pencilling-in-kathmandu-rajman-singh-chitrakar,3379&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598339584192000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH32TKn7xRSbWJHt0nI7ARhkOtFlQ">Pencilling in Kathmandu</a>, Niels Gutschow<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2051#.X0JWOOgzbb0" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D2051%23.X0JWOOgzbb0&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598339584192000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEr4EI8JHxqaSBlPxVt_sFOEgv_NQ">Giving their art and soul</a>, Naresh Newar<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/nepals-botanical-art-in-wuhan/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/nepals-botanical-art-in-wuhan/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598339584192000&amp;usg=AFQjCNERvCFf3z4LhpYOLqfLH-MMDet_cQ">Nepal's botanical art in Wuhan</a>, Nepali Times<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/years-of-botanical-art,3222" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/years-of-botanical-art,3222&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598339584192000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEnbv7TVqZvCY4Ul5YlbHykE-PhUQ">200 years of botanical art</a>, Nepali Times

An antelope and an artist

<img width="1500" height="1547" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101120/636b71529c7e80680e0600c6jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Sarah Yonzan Giri never intended to become a sign-language expert. The wife of Nepal’s famous Panchayat-era prime minister, she was living in Bangalore in 2002 when she wandered into a class for sign language by chance.“The room was silent, but there was a lot of animated signing going on,” Giri remembers. “They were shouting, but I could not hear them.”She had found her life’s mission: advocacy of deaf rights. And recently, she has found that this passion extends to the rights of blind people as well. This has given her a unique vantage point from which she can compare the two worlds, and understand and articulate the unique needs of their inhabitants.Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=11537#.XiliMP4zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sarah's children</a>Giri recalls her moment of epiphany: “I realised that I had been Deaf with a capital D, or culturally deaf. I could hear very well, but I was completely deaf to the unique language of the deaf community.” Back in Nepal, she started helping the deaf community organise art exhibitions, since the visible world is so important to those whose hearing is impaired. Every wall in Giri’s 3-storey house in Kathmandu is covered with works of deaf art — paintings that express the feelings and experiences of deaf people. In one painting, bells clang and bricks fall to one side of the canvass, while feathers float on the other, suggesting that for deaf people, loud sounds fall as gently as down.Giri says deaf people want a channel of communication with the rest of the world, but for that they need proper schools where they can learn standardised sign languages. If not, they will be stuck with making improvised signs and communicating only with those close to them. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=39575&amp;preview_nonce=35bdcd61ca&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Listening to the hearing impaired</a>, Nunuta Rai <figure><img width="640" height="515" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101120/636b71559c7e80680e0600c7jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="640" height="486" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101120/636b71599c7e80680e0600c8jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Every country has its own sign language – and learning at least standardised Nepali sign enables deaf people to communicate with others who know it in Nepal. It is best if they learn American sign too, which is quickly becoming the lingua franca for deaf people like English is for those who hear.Giri herself is fluent in Nepali, Indian and American sign languages (each of which are completely different from each other) and communicates animatedly in all three. Her husband Tulsi Giri was always supportive of her work, but she took time off from it to care for him before his death in 2018.One day after her husband passed away, Giri was walking along the Vishnumati when she heard a plaintive voice singing. “It was really strong and it touched my heart,” recalls Giri, who on following the sound to its source found the singer to be blind. Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/from-nepali-press/dayaram-maharjan%20-making-disabled-children-more-able,2507" target="_blank" rel="noopener">More able</a>, Sajana Baral  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APd7QswuPN4She invited him home, and along the way described everything to him: the roads, trees and buildings outside. Giri says she learnt then that sound is as important to the blind as visuals are to deaf people.After working with people with two different types of disabilities, Giri has insights into their unique worlds. For example, the deaf have two names – one given by their parents which they may never have never heard and may not answer to, and one in sign language which they identify with. “Lighting is very important for deaf people. Something that normal people would see as mysterious dim light settings would not appeal to them, because they cannot sign and talk there,” she expalins.It is just the opposite with blind people, where light is not important, but sound and touch is. When Giri brings her blind friends home, she describes everything to them — the colour of her living room, the texture of the table in front of them, what lies behind them or beside them. Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18615#.Xiljef4zbIW" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Different, but able</a>, Bhrikuti Rai  <figure><img width="640" height="466" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101120/636b715d9c7e80680e0600c9jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="640" height="427" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101120/636b71609c7e80680e0600cajpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>She often takes blind friends on a walk to get them familiar with their surroundings because they may trip and fall in new places. “We can control things in familiar places, but the world is a <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/seeing-it-a-different-way-for-visually-impaired-in-Kathmandu,2933" target="_blank" rel="noopener">live hazard for blind people</a>,” she says. “We put construction materials on pavements, and sometimes street animals are lying around.”Giri says she has learnt from the disabled community that they do not want to be just helped or pitied. They want to be contributing members of society.Her fondest example is a recent outing to Raksha Nepal, an organisation that helps sexually exploited women, that she made with a band of musicians called Prayas, where all the musicians are blind. The visit was healing for both communities.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-right-of-passage/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The right of passage</a>, Sahina Shrestha <figure><img width="5472" height="3648" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101120/636b71639c7e80680e0600cbjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Giri also helped organise an IT challenge with Bright Star Society, in partnership with hotel Yak and Yeti. Bright Star was founded by a blind friend Sushil Adhikari. Gautam Pokharel, the first blind person to pass the public service commission examinations and become a Nepal Telecom officer, won the challenge. Giri speaks with pride about these men and about many activist friends within the blind community.“I admire the work of Shristi KC, who lost her eyesight late in life and now helps friends through the organisation <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/blind-rockers-2019/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Blind Rocks</a>," she says. "Laxmi Nepal, Sanjiya Shrestha, and Sarita Lamichane work on empowering women and help protect them from gender-based violence. This thread of sensitivity, interest in human values and spiritual quest runs right across the community,” says Giri.“The blind people often do not exercise correctly, because they cannot see how to do it. I want to give audio instructions for exercise for blind people, and am currently looking for open space in which to do so,” she says. With her rich immersion in these two contrasting worlds of experience, her sensitivity to difference, and her strong motivation to help, Giri is determined to do what she can to help Nepal’s deaf and blind people. Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18634#.XilkUP4zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Not seeing is believing</a>, Lochana Sharma<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/seeing-it-a-different-way-for-visually-impaired-in-Kathmandu,2933" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Seeing it a different way</a>, Smriti Basnet

Hearing for the deaf, seeing for the blind

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b70a79c7e80680e06008cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="899" height="685"/>The visitor to the Taragaon Museum is surrounded by faces: from large, realistic examinations of elderly men and women to symbolic portraits in abstract styles. An exhibition titled A Portrait Story studies the genre of portraiture from all angles.The oldest exhibit is a framed photograph of Chandra Shumsher, his wife Balkumari, and two of his sons. Back in the 19th century, such portraits were a way of putting your best face forward. The means to own a camera or hire a photographer were only available to the fabulously wealthy, and portraiture was status.Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19789#.XiBDb_4zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The first photographs of us</a>, Kanak Mani Dixit<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b70a99c7e80680e06008djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="876" height="747"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Fast forward to the 21st century, where almost everyone has a mobile phone with which to take a selfie and disseminate it to the world at the press of a key. The exhibition comes full circle in showcasing two social media ‘influencers’ who constantly post selfies.It may seem that flattering depiction is the only purpose of portraiture. However, the genre also exists outside this narcissistic box, and this is where artists come in. A Portrait Story features many artistic explorations of the portrait genre.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/old-art-meets-new/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Old art meets new</a>, Sikuma Rai<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b70ac9c7e80680e06008ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1456" height="1478">“Artists make a lot of portraits on commission, so these are commercial,” says co-curator of the exhibition Shivangi Bansal, “But we know of artists who make portraits just for the sake of making portraits. We wanted to see how artists are exploring this genre beyond commercial art.”Indeed, many of the portraits on display are not necessarily flattering. On the one end of the spectrum is hyper realism, where every tiny detail on a face, from a wrinkle to a missing tooth, is highlighted.Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16424#.XiBEI_4zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Art attack</a><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b70b09c7e80680e06008fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1236" height="1868">At the other end is experimentation, where the details of the face become irrelevant as artists play with outside objects, light and shadows. Manish Lal Shrestha paints only a fraction of his forehead on top of a pillow in ‘Sirani’. Pramila Bajracharya paints a two-dimensional figure of a Nepali woman that seems to portray her personality. Kapil Mani Dixit has an abstract piece which does not look like a portrait at all, while Saurganga Darshandhari experiments with a portrait without a face.Contemporary artists have also experimented with digital manipulations. The picture of a Kumari with an entire temple on her head is an example, and Ishan Pariyar depicts angst with a face that is bursting out of its rope bindings.A Portrait StoryTaragaon Museum, Boudha9-23 Jan

Portraying portraiture at Taragaon

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141116/636a56c29c7e80680e0547a2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="959"/><figcaption>Photo: TARAGAON MESUEM</figcaption></figure>Surrounded by overwhelmingly large ‘Sale’ signs is a tiny object in a large hall. Ang Tsherin Sherpa’s golden statue of a Tibetan deity in underwear is literally the object in focus at an exhibition at Taragaon Museum this week, part of the ‘Object in Focus’ series, designed to give viewers the opportunity to understand art in depth.“When we are surrounded by many exhibits, we often cannot digest what it all means. So this is our effort to delve deep into an important piece of art,” says museum curator Roshan Mishra. US-based Nepali artist Sherpa is the third artist featured in the series.Sherpa’s statue presents many interesting facets to explore: its face, hair and headgear are those of a Tibetan Buddhist deity. But instead of wearing the usual finery, it is attired like a modern superhero, and poses with one arm thrown in the air, Superman style.This piece ‘…and the winner is’ is a replica of Sherpa’s 2D work Victory in Spirit, but the actual metal casting was carried out by Shyam Maharjan, a traditional craftsman from Kathmandu.Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/The-world-beyond-thangkas,3139" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The world beyond thangkas</a>, Smriti BasnetSherpa’s work carries on his previous tradition of mixing traditional and modern art. Coming from a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-craft-of-art/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">family of renowned thangka painters</a>, Sherpa himself trained as a painter from the age of 13, and worked with his father on murals and monasteries for almost 20 years. He migrated to the US and painted there, also giving classes on traditional painting. That was when western art motifs began to infiltrate his work.Sherpa’s later works have depicted ancient deities caught in the modern world: gods in non-traditional poses, wearing western outfits, trying to break out of little boxes, shuttered inside claustrophobic modern motifs and trying to be heard amid the cacophony.The 3D work at Taragaon Museum fits this mould, but Sherpa does not want to talk about what it means. “To me, the pose symbolises a subjugation of negativity, it’s about hope,” he said at an interaction at the museum. “But I don’t want to attribute a particular significance to it. I would rather let viewers explore their imagination.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/us-nepali-art/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">US-Nepali Art</a>, Sonia AwaleInstead, Sherpa wants to talk about traditional art and his role in promoting it. “I used to work for months on a thangka piece, but then clients would ask why they should pay $3,000 for it when they can get a thangka for $200. The ordinary customer does not know the difference between real traditional art and souvenir art. Artists often fall prey to these market forces and are forced to compromise on quality,” he says.“That leads me to question what will happen to this art form 50 years down the line. Will we have any masters left, or only souvenir artists?” asks Sherpa.In an effort to promote traditional art, Sherpa visited many museums in the west and spoke to many curators. He found that they too had been desensitised by the flux of copies, and were unable to tell the difference between quality art and mediocre art. Sherpa then decided to contribute in his own way to get more recognition for traditional art.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-craft-of-art/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The craft of art</a>, Sewa BhattaraiHe returned to Nepal after the 2015 earthquake, and has since been trying to serve as a bridge between traditional artists and the modern, western art world. For this exhibit, he sought out Shyam Maharjan, renowned for casting religious figures. “I did have to convince him to take up my unconventional work, by showing him photos of myself being blessed by several rinpoches,” laughs Sherpa. “But this is a way of highlighting high quality traditional metal casting as well, when this statue is exhibited abroad.”Taragaon’s Roshan Mishra also raised the question of ownership about pieces of art like this one: while the metal craftsman is the one who makes the physical object, the art is usually attributed to the designer who conceptualises it. For his part, Maharjan is glad that the statue came out so well.“Many religious teachers have complimented me on my work, and I know I am a good craftsman. I am happy to see that even this unconventional design looks so good,” he says.Though his work veers far from his traditional roots, Sherpa contends that he has a deep respect for traditional arts, and aims to put more focus on them. “We don’t have an infrastructure to support traditional artists, due to which it is dying out. Through my work I want to open up a conversation about how to best address this,” he says.Sherpa has sometimes been accused of ‘sacrilege’ but the art world has welcomed his work as a breath of fresh air. “Thanks to the artist for this diabolical piece,” says Sangeeta Thapa, founder of Siddhartha Art Gallery. “We always see the same deities everywhere and wonder why artists don’t experiment.”Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepali-art-going-places/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepali art going places</a>, Kunda Dixit Object in Focus 3rd Edition3-13 SeptemberTaragaon Museum, Bouddha

God and Superman

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131156/636a52869c7e80680e0522fejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="941"/><figcaption>Pic: GG Machaan / facebook</figcaption></figure>Artist Sunita Rana’s imaginary locations transfer the viewer to a dream world: ethereal light shines through trees with red, yellow and pink leaves, and the water in ponds gives a sense of tranquillity. Rana’s exhibition, Continuum, at GG Machaan, captures her artistic vision of nature.“I think art has no boundaries, and neither do nature and life. We all come from nature, and go back into nature. That is why my art is mostly focused on this subject,” says Rana, who is also president of the Women Artists’ Group of Nepal (WAGON).Rana’s series on nature is a visual delight, with surreal landscapes that blend imagination and reality. In one, we see a wide plain full of colourful trees, reminding one of the hills of Nepal, but the glittering golden and lavender leaves are more imaginary than real. In another, a lush forest is shown near a pond, but only the forest’s airborne elements are reflected on the water surface, not the actual trees.There are green trees in the forest, and white trees made of lightning in the sky. Rana has rendered all the elements of nature – trees, rocks, water – with the precision of a realistic painter, but added her own fantasy elements to beautify them.Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Nepals-bird-family-hira-dangol,3524" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal's bird family</a>, Smriti BasnetHer other favourite theme is women. She has drawn them in exotic locations like Mustang, or framed them in contrasting colours to highlight their features. In one piece, a woman wearing peacock feathers stands out from the background of men milling around.“Women have a large role to play in society, but they are often shown in the background. I wanted to change that by bringing them out front and highlighting them,” says Rana.A visual artist who works in multiple mediums, Rana has also done installations and sculpting, but this exhibition showcases her various styles of painting. It includes monochrome pieces and some abstract works in dark browns and black. Rana's work is notable for its cheerful use of colours that also impart a sense of serenity.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-craft-of-art/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The craft of art</a>, Sewa BhattaraiContinuumGG Machaan, Jhamsikhel

Continuum

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

‘Art Lover’ accused of sexual abuse

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

UFO over Pokhara

When Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) president Rabi Lamichhane was arrested in October on charges of defrauding depositors of cooperatives, the party’s vice president Swarnim Wagle gifted him Fareed Zakaria’s book, Age of Revolutions.
Since then, Lamichhane has been shunted around from Kathmandu to Pokhara to Chitwan and back to Pokhara to attend police investigations and court proceedings. He was being flown to Birganj via Kathmandu on Buddha Air on Monday. There is another pending case in Janakpur.
Human rights groups and civil society have criticised the government for hounding Lamichhane with inhumane treatment that borders on physical torture. The two parties in the coalition, Nepali Congress (NC) and the UML, see Lamichhane’s RSP as a potentially formidable challenge to their power.
Even if the fraud charges against Lamichhane are true, the Nepali public is increasingly looking at the government’s actions through the police and courts as political vendetta.
Despite all the travelling, sometimes by plane and often by road at night, Lamichhane appears to be in high spirits, waving to supporters who often gather if they know he is going to be driven around. A social media video shows him giving high fives to fellow passengers on a recent flight to Pokhara.&nbsp;
In the past weeks, streets in Pokhara have erupted with parallel protests by Lamichhane’s supporters as well as depositors of cooperatives who lost their savings to the scam.&nbsp;
Although family visits are allowed, prison officials in Pokhara told Nepali Times that not many people visit Lamichhane these days. He added, “When he does get visitors, he asks them to bring him books.”
Lamichhane is currently Nepal’s most high-profile public figure in custody, and highlights the stark difference between how influential prisoners are treated compared to ordinary inmates.
There are six prison cells at Kaski District Police Office’s two-story detention centre, three on each floor. And while authorities pack prisoners into already overcrowded cells, Lamichhane has an entire room on the second floor to himself.&nbsp;
He has also been allowed to call his family every few days. Other prisoners are not permitted phone calls except for emergencies.
Meanwhile, Lamichhane’s former business partner Chhabilal Joshi, an ex-Deputy Inspector General of Police with whom he established his Gorkha Media Network, is in custody under the same charges in the prison cell next to him.
Lamichhane is accused of siphoning off depositors' money to the tv network in which he was part-owner and anchor. &nbsp;
Both Lamichhane and Joshi are able to buy food from the police canteen instead of being served the regular meal like other prisoners. Joshi has also given his statement to authorities in Rupandehi and Kathmandu for his alleged role in the scam. Lamichhane is yet to be presented in Kathmandu for questioning.
While he was in custody at the Kathmandu District Police Complex, Joshi expressed his desire to sleep in a police officer’s office, reportedly assuring authorities that he would not run away and he was entitled to certain facilities as a former officer of the law.
“He seemed to be under the impression that he is still a police officer,” says a source at the Kathmandu District Police. “We made it clear to him that as someone accused of a crime, he was not entitled to special treatment.”
Former ministers Balkrishna Khand and Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, and ex-home secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, who were arrested in connection with the fake refugee scam last year, were similarly housed in the offices of law enforcement officials instead of prison cells. Khand has since been released after six months in jail.
While there is no legal provision to keep high-ranking officials in separate detention centres when they are arrested, authorities granting them special facilities is not uncommon. Law enforcement officials say VIP detainees expect preferential treatment while in police custody.
Among those is former Kosi Province minister Lila Ballav Adhikari, who was arrested from Biratnagar on 10 November over his alleged involvement in human trafficking and brought to Kathmandu. Adhikari had flown to Japan without government approval with three individuals on 29 October to attend a cultural conference, but had been sent back to Nepal from Narita.&nbsp;
His three companions were arrested at Kathmandu airport upon their arrival, but Adhikari was able to exit unscathed from the VIP lounge. Adhikari had resigned as the Kosi Province Minister for Internal Affairs and Law when it became public that his companions had been taken into custody, and was himself arrested shortly after. He has since been cleared by the courts.
Throughout his detention, Adhikari was kept separately from other inmates. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Basant Rajouri, head of the Bhadrakali complex, says that while there is no separate detention area for VIPs, some detainees are kept separately depending on the nature of their crime.
However, sources say that arrangements were made for retired judges and others to visit Adhikari frequently worked at the office of a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) during his time in custody.&nbsp;
“He used to constantly pester the authorities to let him sit outside in the sun, and to be able to use the police officer’s shower area,” added an officer.
Adhikari was released on 25 November after the government prosecutor’s office decided not to charge him in a move that was seen to expose the government’s double standards.
Over at Kathmandu’s Dilli Bazar Prison, former Kist Bank CEO Kamal Gyawali emerges from his prison cell into the courtyard of the prison’s ‘Ka (क)’ block every morning with a thick book in his hands, ready to give his daily sermon.
With his long beard, Gyawali, who is serving a prison sentence for banking fraud, looks the part of a religious guru as he implores his rapt listeners to “walk the right path, abandon bad thoughts and turn to scripture and spirituality”.&nbsp;
Afterward, the attendees gather to discuss politics and current affairs. Inmates at his daily sermons at the prison include other high-profile detainees, including former MP Ichchha Raj Tamang, who is in jail for money laundering and cooperatives fraud, former joint secretary Chudamani Sharma, who was convicted of corruption, as well as NC leader Chandra Bahadur Lama and Krishna Bahadur Upreti of the UML both of whom are on trial for embezzling billions of rupees.
Victims of the cooperatives scam that former lawmaker Tamang was involved in have made trips to the prison and requested visits, but he has refused to meet with any of them.
“Tamang often complains that the state has prevented him from returning the money to the victims by locking him up,” says a police officer at the Dili Bazar jail.
“All you hear every day from the VIP prisoners is that they have been framed,” adds the officer. “No one admits that they were involved in misdeeds.”
But while most high-profile prisoners complain about prison conditions, one exception is former provincial lawmaker Deepak Manange, who is serving a sentence at Dilli Bazar Jail for attempted murder.
“He is the happiest prisoner here,” says a warden. “Unlike the others, he doesn’t claim to have been framed, in fact he doesn’t seem to care that he is in prison.”
Manange is detained in the ‘Kha (ख)’ block of the prison complex, which he renovated at his own expense. The block previously housed female prisoners, but Manange used his influence to transfer them elsewhere. He faces no shortage of visitors, who range from political leaders to people from the underworld.
Along with Manange, other well-known prisoners in this block include Nepal Telecom Managing Director Sunil Poudel, and former executive director of the Surakshan Printing Centre Bikal Poudel, who are serving time for corruption.
Former prisoners at Dilli Bazar prison include ex-ministers Khum Bahadur Khadka and Shyam Sundar Gupta, NC leader Ganesh Lama, Maoist MP Balkrishna Dhungel, Nagarik Unmukti Party leader Resham Chaudhary, as well as former IGs Ramesh Chand Thakuri, Om Bikram Rana, and Hem Bahadur Gurung.
Section 54 of Nepal’s Prison Act assigns each prison’s internal administration the
responsibility of governing its prisoners, which means the more favourable the jail management is, the more comfortable it is for prisoners.
Dilli Bazar prison has been the prison of choice for many high-ranking prisoners, especially those convicted of white collar crimes, due to its more accommodating administrators. The prison, which has the capacity to house 700 inmates, is also less crowded than other jails.
Anuj Bhattarai, spokesperson of the Department of Prison Management, says that there is no legal classification in Nepal for felons to be assigned prisons based on the nature of their crimes.
“That Dilli Bazar Jail has a higher number of prisoners convicted of crimes like corruption is most likely a coincidence,” says Bhattarai. “There is no provision for influential people to be able to choose where they will be incarcerated.”&nbsp;
Translated by Shristi Karki from the Nepali original published in himalkhabar.com

What Nepal’s VIP prisoners do in jail

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

painting