History is not always fair to the protagonists who find themselves caught up in it. The history of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/diary-of-a-nepali-soldier-in-france">Gurkha soldiers</a> is no exception. Brave khukuri-swinging soldiers in combat khakis and hats marching off to battle have been an iconic part of Nepal’s past. Forgotten on the pages of history, however, are their sarong-clad wives in Nepal or abroad, their struggles and their contribution. Lately, there has been an effort to correct this with welcome attempts to document the experience of Gurkha wives. Suzana Thapa Shris’s recent exhibition Gurkha Women: An Echo in the Story helped filled this gap by retelling the stories from the perspective of the wives of soldiers.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231207101232_c2517596a438db1f00d1643815a6c13815cec7d491509e897d9bed8879c5bbd4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20231207101232_c2517596a438db1f00d1643815a6c13815cec7d491509e897d9bed8879c5bbd4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="Gurkha women 2"> </figure>  “When Gurkha soldiers were fighting wars, it was their women who single-handedly led the households, they were the silent heroes,” explains 29-year-old Thapa Shris. “With limited money and resources, they raised families and boys who grew up to be lahure themselves. Their contribution is immense.” Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/beginning-of-the-end-of-the-gorkha-empire">Beginning of the end of the Gorkha Empire</a>, Alisha Sijapati After her first exhibition Bharseli Gurkhas: From Stories to Portraits which looked into the lives of Gurkha soldiers from her ancestral village of Bharse of Gulmi district, Thapa Shris felt that she also needed to put the spotlight on the wives.&nbsp; Coming from a Gurkha household herself, where her grandfather was in the Indian Army, Thapa Shris was introduced to her family’s praetorian past from a very young age. She grew up with her grandparents in Butwal, listening to the lore both from the battles as well as the home front.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231207101232_bcce9d8fe47dc7c8ede1cd1f7a6f70e1877f4f9788865cb703f9504a6e205ab2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20231207101232_bcce9d8fe47dc7c8ede1cd1f7a6f70e1877f4f9788865cb703f9504a6e205ab2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Gurkha women 4"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231207101232_185f09e6839ab5130514dc86ade39257b97b6095f4a8a300f7c7439832624997.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20231207101232_185f09e6839ab5130514dc86ade39257b97b6095f4a8a300f7c7439832624997" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="967" loading="lazy" alt="Gurkha women 3"> </figure>  Her father Bom Bahadur Thapa, a horticulturist by profession and a writer, wrote a book Bharseli Gorkhagatha ra Serofero about his ancestors. And when Thapa Shris started her project, the father-daughter duo interviewed some 50 women in their 70s and above from Baglung, Gorkha, Gulmi, Kaski, Palpa, Rupandehi, and Sunsari. They were all wives of Nepali soldiers who had served in the UK, India, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-malayan-rainforest-and-its-rare-flower">Singapore and Malaya</a> (now Malaysia). “The exhibition took shape as we were looking into who these women were, their life stories and their contribution to Gurkha history,” she adds. “Their identity and contribution has been the main objective of this exhibition.” Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/lest-we-forget">Lest we forget</a>, David Seddon Thapa Shris never formally learnt art, but her raw talent for portraits is there for everyone to see. Also on display at the Nepal Art Council from 25-28 November were sketches, archival pictures, visual footage of interviews, and installation art with traditional music in the background. But the highlight of the event were evocative testimonies with their respective portraits depicting two kinds of women: those left behind in Nepal and those in foreign lands where their husbands were deployed. Most struggled to make ends meet, and that too in a new place where they did not speak the local language. <div class="embed-block"><div><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%;"><iframe src="//cdn.iframe.ly/api/iframe?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FGAUPq7EK_vk%3Fsi%3DNtp3w8G4XbM_OSZy&key=87ca3314a9fa775b5c3a7726100694b0" style="top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; border: 0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" allow="accelerometer *; clipboard-write *; encrypted-media *; gyroscope *; picture-in-picture *; web-share *;"></iframe></div></div></div> “We automatically assume that Gurkha soldiers are well-off and their lives easy but that is not always the case,” explains Bom Bahadur. “There was no immediate means of communication or any channel to wire money. It was these brave women who made their way.”&nbsp; While archival footage helped the audience peek into their lives in foreign lands, an installation art of a classic Nepali knitted bag filled with envelopes depicted how in those days letters were the only medium of contact between spouses. One section was dedicated to hand photography intended to show the resilience and the kind of lives these women led. All the portraits here had wrinkled hands of the women resting on their patterned lungi.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231207101232_a97971b33334ae0e9ffca90c7feeb83e07c17af8a67753e99b6f29aab65035bd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20231207101232_a97971b33334ae0e9ffca90c7feeb83e07c17af8a67753e99b6f29aab65035bd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="953" loading="lazy" alt="gurkha women 5"> </figure>  The exhibition also featured traditional dresses and jewellery of the Gurkha women as well as wooden utensils used by these indigenous communities in the past. Lungi, gold beruwa bangles and traditional gold asarfi rings synonymous with Lahureni were also heavily featured. “The gold came much later after the wartime,” adds Suzana.&nbsp; “One thing all the bojus said was that they were happy that they at least got to wear gold.” The father-daughter duo is now planning to transcribe all the testimonies and turn them into a book. Says Bom Bahadur: “I am glad our Gurkha women are highlighted. The fact that my daughter is working on it makes me even prouder.” &nbsp;

Pinki Sris Rana

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Retelling Gurkha history

Thakur Das Shrestha, originally from Nepal, established the famous Das Studio in Darjeeling in 1927. Since then, his descendants have been documenting the changes of their home country through photography.&nbsp; Their work will be displayed in Postcards from Kathmandu’s Past, an exhibition of photographs by three generations of the Das family, with works by Dwarika Das Shrestha (1926–2004), Gyanendra Das Shrestha (born 1955) and Kashish Das Shrestha (born 1982).&nbsp; The exhibition opens on 28 April and will go on till 4 May at Wind Horse Gallery located at Moksh Bar in Jhamsikhel. One particular image has an expressed commentary: The Basantapur AI Blue Sky, produced two weeks ago, on a day when Kathmandu city ranked as one of the top most polluted cities in the world.&nbsp; The sky and some colour tones of the smoggy day with fiery sunset has been deliberately AI enhanced to emphasise how blue-sky spring days in Kathmandu valley are rapidly becoming rarer.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/an-archive-of-nepali-heritage">An archive of Nepali heritage</a>, Ashish Dhakal  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230428090420_b235d6d0371004c3e1790a4146dea9cfd1627465d14bbfdc7f0d4d9a3d364b22.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20230428090420_b235d6d0371004c3e1790a4146dea9cfd1627465d14bbfdc7f0d4d9a3d364b22" data-rendition-name="original" width="1750" height="1751" loading="lazy" alt="Postcards from Kathmandu NT"> <figcaption>1960s Parked in Patan. Photo: DWARIKA DAS SHRESTHA</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230428090420_9a5a47250fdee06803a7aa69a1f6ff7731c99dad8c12748990b9bdd83166d2f2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20230428090420_9a5a47250fdee06803a7aa69a1f6ff7731c99dad8c12748990b9bdd83166d2f2" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1667" loading="lazy" alt="Postcards from Kathmandu NT"> <figcaption>1980s recreation of Parked in Patan. Photo: GYANENDRA DAS SHRESTHA</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230428090420_f68feaaf4402e1a082852ee153a78e3095579ad8d2f8600ff227c30e98750c2e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20230428090420_f68feaaf4402e1a082852ee153a78e3095579ad8d2f8600ff227c30e98750c2e" data-rendition-name="original" width="2750" height="1833" loading="lazy" alt="Postcards from Kathmandu NT"> <figcaption>2023 recreation of Parked in Patan. Photo: KASHISH DAS SHRESTHA</figcaption> </figure>  &nbsp;Dwarika Das Shrestha was the second of four sons of Thakur Das in Darjeeling. By 1950s, Das Studio was already a popular social hub for locals and visitors. People stopped by to have conversations about current affairs and photography.&nbsp; They bought Das Studio’s postcards and posters of Darjeeling and Sikkim which were &nbsp;immensely popular in the days before the Internet. Prince Peter of Greece and Denmark regularly spent time there, and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and French monk Matthieu Ricard were close family friends.&nbsp; Dwarika was active with the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and went on several expeditions with Norgay from Darjeeling. Although he had wanted to join an Everest expedition, his grandmother convinced him to abandon the idea because of the risks involved.&nbsp; In 1960, Dwarika moved back to Kathmandu permanently and set up the Das Photo Store in Khicha Pokhari, just off New Road. Apart from studio services and documentary photography, he also offered photo and video classes, and volunteered as a photography teacher at St Xavier’s School in Jawalakhel.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/making-nepal-s-history-colourful">Making Nepal’s history colourful</a>, Kanak Mani Dixit  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230428090420_a26565105dad1a7d9a214ca68c4acc0962d2c695bfa7c7c3454c0f608b2c8344.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20230428090420_a26565105dad1a7d9a214ca68c4acc0962d2c695bfa7c7c3454c0f608b2c8344" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="3000" loading="lazy" alt="Postcards from Kathmandu NT"> <figcaption>Dharara, circa 1960. Photo: DWARIKA DAS SHRESTHA</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230428090420_0240e60ef0eb6c8b7fe0a969538cd75b9bebdae73e0577596238bd7e8e860568.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20230428090420_0240e60ef0eb6c8b7fe0a969538cd75b9bebdae73e0577596238bd7e8e860568" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="3000" loading="lazy" alt="Postcards from Kathmandu NT"> <figcaption>Dharara after the 2015 earthquake. Photo: KASHISH DAS SHRESTHA</figcaption> </figure>  Dwarika helped introduce the country to the outside world during the 1960s and 70s as he was the first person to produce commercial postcards of the country for visitors to mail back home. Dwarika maintained an active social life in Kathmandu, which included the royal princes of Nepal whom he had known since their boarding school days in Darjeeling. He also met Nepal’s former Prime Minister B P Koirala, who was at that time an underground national leader spearheading the pro-democracy movement against the monarchy. Dwarika took a photo of Koirala and printed it as a poster for his supporters to use. &nbsp; Dwarika’s image of Swayambhu, photographed from the stupa’s west face, had become immensely popular in the 60s and 70s as a postcard. His son Gyanendra re-created and published an updated version of the image in the 80s and 90s with equal success. It remains a defining frame and this angle on the stupa has been reproduced by countless professional and hobby photographers and, more recently, Instagrammers and TikTokers. Gyanendra Das Shrestha was born in Kathmandu, and is an internationally published award-winning photographer. In 1976, aged just 21, he won his first international photography award, the Koishikawa Rotary Club Prize, organised by the Asian Cultural Center for UNESCO. Two years later, he won the Asian Cultural Center for UNESCO Prize itself. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-way-we-were">The way we were</a>, Kunda Dixit  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230428090420_685d3a86237b764b87274f2abc2bda56da41cc45f97f4f7e4c77721a8c56362e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20230428090420_685d3a86237b764b87274f2abc2bda56da41cc45f97f4f7e4c77721a8c56362e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="2395" loading="lazy" alt="Postcards from Kathmandu NT"> <figcaption>1960s Swayambhu postcard that helped define the most popular framing of the stupa. Photo: DWARIKA DAS SHRESTHA</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230428090420_2b78871c45c09c1cdf4f2d925166c892686fb616d495fdab8e195f5afbfa3912.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20230428090420_2b78871c45c09c1cdf4f2d925166c892686fb616d495fdab8e195f5afbfa3912" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1965" loading="lazy" alt="Postcards from Kathmandu NT"> <figcaption>Recreating original Das postcard of Swayambhu 3 days after the earthquake. Photo: KASHISH DAS SHRESTHA</figcaption> </figure>  Gyanendra opened his own photo shop, Das Color Lab, in early 80s, pivoting from documentary to commercial photography, and focused on expanding the studio services and postcard and poster market his father and grandfather had pioneered. His ‘Top of the World’ poster of Mt Everest rom Kala Pathar became the defining image that popularised the Everest Trek and that vantage point. His Annapurna panorama from Pokhara lakeside taken in the 80s became another instant classic and the view has been replicated endlessly by photographers since.&nbsp; &nbsp;Das Color Lab closed its shutters for good before Gyanendra joined his family in New York in 2006. But the posters and postcards it produced through the final decades of the 20th century continue to influence and define the market for commercial photography today. His son, Kashish, is in turn an internationally published writer and photographer with 25 years of print and broadcast media experience. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/multimedia/reliving-analogue-photography">Reliving analogue photography</a>, Suman Nepali  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230428090420_ca26dbda68f45a529f752f84dd32610991c43f47db58a3f04385e4934b0cb117.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20230428090420_ca26dbda68f45a529f752f84dd32610991c43f47db58a3f04385e4934b0cb117" data-rendition-name="original" width="3000" height="608" loading="lazy" alt="Postcards from Kathmandu NT"> <figcaption>The classic Top of the World photograph from Kala Pattar that became the iconic view of Mt Everest. Photo: GYANENDRA DAS SHRESTHA</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230428090420_d52b8cbe5238ee7fc506189ca72ad577d0f8b6c8e014692971e8e6017a47ec07.jpg" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20230428090420_d52b8cbe5238ee7fc506189ca72ad577d0f8b6c8e014692971e8e6017a47ec07" data-rendition-name="original" width="3000" height="1327" loading="lazy" alt="Postcards from Kathmandu NT"> <figcaption>The Old Pokhara panorama, the city has changed but the mountains have not. Photo: GYANENDRA DAS SHRESTHA</figcaption> </figure>  Kashish picked up photography and writing as a teenager because it was in his blood, and also because he wanted to document the youth culture he was part of in the 90s. He also photographed Bhutanese refugee resettlement in eastern Nepal and the Maoist conflict, and later in North America. Kashish traveled to Rolpa and spent a week with the Maoist rebels, many of whom were teenagers. As the conflict continued to grow, he photographed and wrote about the rebels extensively for Nepali Times from deep inside their strongholds in the western plains and the eastern hills. Kashish uses his writing and photography to fund independent research and pro bono policy work on sustainable development in Nepal. His works have been exhibited at various venues over the years, including at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, Stanford University in California, and all seven Bhutanese refugee camps in southeastern Nepal. His 2009 solo Americana exhibition, ‘Marfa to Manhattan’, was supported by the US State Department. Kashish is currently working on a food anthropology and pop culture project on the history of momo. “The transformation of spaces, as small as a public square, or as large as the valley, gives us much to think about,” &nbsp;he says. “These transformations have been shaped by us, and affect us. This is not to say that old was good or new is bad. Nepal has rapidly urbanised in the last decade, and it can fairly be said this transition has been neither thoughtful nor sustainable. It has simply just been.”&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/portrait-of-a-photographer-in-rural-nepal/">Portrait of a photographer in rural Nepal</a>, Monika Deupala &nbsp; Postcards from Kathmandu's Past Friday, 28 April 3PM till 4 May, 2023 Wind Horse Gallery with support from Photo Concern Moksh, Jawalakhel Limited Edition Prints from the Das archives on Hahnemühle paper. The first editions on display at the exhibition are Giclée prints.

Postcards from Kathmandu

The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/news/photoktm-5-s-visual-extravaganza">fifth edition of PhotoKTM </a>has come to an end. The theme of the annual month-long festivity this year was the natural world with a focus on co-existence and nature. There were over 60 participating artists from 16 countries. One of them was Mónica Alcázar-Duarte, a Mexican-British multi-disciplinary visual artist whose work acknowledges her indigenous heritage while exploring current ideals of progress. In 2022, Alcazar-Duart was awarded the Wayfinder Award from National Geographic, as well as a residency with Light Work through the Autograph Gallery in London. Her work has been exhibited and collected throughout Europe, Mexico and the United States in places such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Autograph Gallery in London and Wilhelm Hack Museum in Germany.&nbsp; Alston D’Silva, an educator, critic and media scholar based in Kathmandu recently spoke to Alcazar-Duart about her recent PhotoKTM exhibition. Read the excerpts: Alston D’Silva: In your earlier project Second Nature where you explored the biases in algorithmically generated representation of Mexican women, you have reflected that technology adopts language related to nature, “enabling it to sit comfortably in our minds”. &nbsp;More immediately in Ikamo-Tlalli (Earthless), your exhibition at PhotoKTM 5, you juxtapose an articulation of natural abundance with exploitation and extraction. Can you speak about your sustained engagement with this concept of the Anthropocene? How does the history of space exploration direct us into a trajectory of more climate altering activity? How does the site of your work, the island of Ascension, engage with the activation and suppression of indigenous knowledge and history? Mónica Alcázar-Duarte: The case of Ascension Island, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, is particularly poignant when referring to notions of colonialism in science. It became an experiment for Charles Darwin, Kew Gardens (the Royal Botanic Gardens founded in 1840 that collected flora specimens) and the Royal Navy.&nbsp; In 1836, during his second Beagle voyage through the Galapagos, Darwin briefly visited Ascension. He is quoted referring to the island as a cinder. In 1847 his friend and botanist Joseph Hooker, who would become Kew Gardens’ director, agreed to engage in the shipment of trees, plants and some animal species to the island. This was all possible thanks to the help of the Royal Navy.&nbsp; This experiment, changing the island’s ecosystem, is the first terraforming action, a man-made ecosystem that was approximately 12 years in the making. Today the island has three different ecosystems: rainforest, a volcanic mountain range and a desert ecosystem, the rainforest being the main result of the terraforming process. Ascension is used today as a reference for what could be achieved one day by a human colony on Mars. The cultural mythology around this kind of idea exists as an attempt to reduce the gap between the fantasy of Mars as a second home to humanity and the reality of it.&nbsp; With Ikamo-Tlalli (Earthless) I seek to show how wide the gap is between the idea of bringing life as we have it now on Earth to Mars, and the reality of what this process would require. The balance of ecological systems as we have had them on Earth took 4.5 billion years to evolve. All the technology, ingenuity, and advancement of our civilisation will never catch up with natural processes such as this magnificent occurrence. But unfortunately, at this point in time we believe that we will become demi-gods and, in some corners, scientists are seriously considering ideas of geoengineering, terraforming, and so on. I see these approaches as the legacy of a certain attitude developed many years ago in which Nature is there to be probed, poked, and owned. As part of the colonial project that took place around the world, and that was enhanced by the Industrial Revolution, indigenous ideas of stewardship were supplanted by ideals of ownership and production, of efficiency and resources, towards Nature and our position within it. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/multimedia/reliving-analogue-photography">Reliving analogue photography</a>, Suman Nepali  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230331140324_7252e37e7855db7748a77bcd5712f48ddfda85c25398d59059a6b628d255b4fe.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20230331140324_7252e37e7855db7748a77bcd5712f48ddfda85c25398d59059a6b628d255b4fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1667" loading="lazy" alt="Shikhar Bhattarai"> <figcaption>Photo: (Photo: Shikhar Bhattarai)© Shikhar Bhattarai</figcaption> </figure>  Your work assembles the output of myriad research methodologies—artistic, archival, algorithmic, among others. For instance, you include a reproduction of stock crashes generated by AI bots overlaid on a photograph of yourself in an apiary outfit, and across from it is a grim archival photograph of a decapitated animal head presumably from a natural history collection. How does your work engage with rational systems of knowledge production across time? These interventions appear less straightforward than outright rejection, as you appear to make space for technological imaginaries to converse with ancestral knowing and emancipatory impulses—minus capitalism. Is that an accurate characterisation of the intervention your work attempts? What strategies does your work suggest to bring forward indigeneity and ancestral knowledge into the din of scientific discourse and technological confabulation? I think of my work as ‘work in progress’. The projects that I work on usually take years to develop. This is not only due to the amount of research that goes into the projects, but also because I acknowledge my evolving standpoint. I say this because I believe it is important to recognise that we don’t hold all the answers and that we are ‘in-process’ just as much as our work is. Having stated this, early on when I started work on the space exploration project, I realised that it was going to take several years for the project to unfold. It was quite likely that technology would change and my point of view towards it all would evolve. As I said, I evolve as the work grows. This is not a lack of commitment to the ideas, or even to making a statement. It is more like a philosophy of what I would like to see as humility towards the seeking of knowledge.&nbsp; In the case of the work shown during PhotoKTM, I decided to test the combination of themes that I have been working on since 2014. And one of these themes involves the use of language as a tool for decolonial thought. The use of Náhuatl (an indigenous language from the central part of México) comes at a time when I find out that my grandmother quite likely belonged to an indigenous community. I concluded this from a photograph she showed me, and a story she told me. The amount of denial I encountered in my family afterwards was what piqued my interest and prompted my now insatiable study of post-colonial and decolonial thought. This denial signalled something other than the question about my indigenous heritage. It indicated a legacy of erasure that has been internalised by us all in such a way that we think this is the order of things, this is the way things work. This disables any possibility for a different form of enquiry, or knowledge building, or shift in paradigms.&nbsp; In my case, the needed paradigm shift relates to ecological thought. What I mean is, if we have English as the language of Science, and Science as the language of the future, any other mode of expression, investigation, assertion, is excluded and diminished. It is rendered ineffective and outdated. This becomes problematic at a moment in time in which we find ourselves struggling to see a way through ecological crisis, not quite understanding that what we need is a different series of imaginaries for the future. These imaginaries, as I am calling them, must emerge from a different way of being and an understanding of the natural world and our position in it. I do not want to pretend that I have an answer, but I am clear that we can’t remain inactive. I prefer to participate, take part in conversations, prompt questions and seek answers together. Making this type of work is part of a process of mourning what we have already lost and what is not coming back, like the little rabbit encased in formaldehyde and ethanol as a specimen of study in the installation part of PhotoKTM. But it is also my way of using the energy that mourning brings with it.&nbsp; The future as we are living it now, with its ideals of progress and infinite growth, has quickly become the unsustainable fantasy that puts profit before life. We need schools, and clinics, and roads, but there must be a way in which we do not need a digital cloud that consumes 30 billion watts of power per year (New York Times, 2012). This equals the energy produced by 30 nuclear plants, or 6.4 million households in a year.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-way-we-were">The way we were</a>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230331140328_0791a0571546b89f338846d47cb5a4e5cda537d9ca2200d7612fe699e039abb9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20230331140328_0791a0571546b89f338846d47cb5a4e5cda537d9ca2200d7612fe699e039abb9" data-rendition-name="original" width="3500" height="2333" loading="lazy" alt="Praveen Chettri"> <figcaption>Photo:Praveen Chettri</figcaption> </figure>  We’ve seen strategies of research experiments across many of the works in the festival. Would you say that this is the result of the complexity of the issues that you are compelled to explore as an artist? &nbsp; I think this is where I could mention the term that came out in our conversation the other day; techno-agnostic. I find how we arrived at this term so interesting because it was prompted by your question on techno-phobia and my resolution to make clear that I am not anti-technology, or anti-knowledge, or anti-exploration. These are all needed traits in humanity. Great advancements in medicine and care for people with PTSD have come thanks to VR for example. Palliative care on cancer patients has also helped many people thanks to image generated technological developments. Our empathy grows because of travelling. Our curiosity has resulted in great advancements in medicine. But I perceive there is a certain reverence towards ‘tech’; an almost faith-like attitude towards technology and its capabilities to bring answers to our pressing problems. This I find problematic, and so I find myself becoming techno-agnostic. I remain open to the evolution of technology, but I do not believe we should use it to offset the ecological issues we are facing today. We cannot think that we will store the DNA of all those extinct species with the goal of bringing them back one day, maybe on Mars, when it has taken billions of years for the right living conditions to exist the way they have existed up to now. We should not think that if we need to, we will geo-engineer clouds that will ‘patch’ the ozone holes once the condition becomes unsustainable. Why not instead figure out a way to rid ourselves of a business model dependent on our data, dependent on a gigantic digital cloud, dependent on profit over our life.&nbsp; I’m curious about the haptic qualities in the video installation, where the camera suggests the gait of a human subject. As a mode of conveyance, the video appears to pointedly contrast walking as a grounded inquiry on the surface of the planet to the bombastic theatre of space exploration. Can you elaborate on these qualities of the video? Relatedly, your work features a practice of self-insertion—you appear as a veiled figure in the video at Ikamo-Tlalli (‘Earthless’)—which suggests your own entanglement with the questions and issues you explore. The movement of the camera appears to be an extension of this expression of situatedness.&nbsp; Recently, right in front of our eyes, the natural world has revolted in such a way that we lack the emotional, sensorial vocabulary to understand it, nevermind expressing it. All of the sudden, there are ghostly presences, such as the melting icebergs, that come with a history of unheard messages, and interconnections, these presences are becoming testimonies. My use of statics and movement through film, photography and drawing, is my contribution to what I see as an absence of thought on current ideas of ecological thought. The self-insertion, as you are calling it, comes from a sense of erasure. Bodies, faces, presences like mine are not expected in certain spaces. People that speak and look like me, non-western, do not belong in spaces where conversations on space exploration, or algorithmic bias, take place. Furthermore, throughout my life I have been shown a reflection of people like me by outsiders who have claimed to know better about the world. Through a neoliberal globalised world, we are abstracted and generalised to a state where we have lost our own points of reference. By inserting myself within the spaces in which I have been told I do not belong I open a wound of absence, an absence of thought that we are all feeling now. This absence of thought is not a global thought, it is not an all-encompassing standard. This thought is not internationalist. This thought recognises difference as our shared humanity and change as the only constant. I am interested in that difference, in that contradiction, in that contested space. A space in which clean-cut answers do not cut it anymore, because we are living in a world that has revealed its wild ‘liveness’ in all its force. It is in this space where new imaginaries will form. It is in this space where ghosts like my great-grandma, my grandma, and myself, are revealed. These ghosts, for a lack of a better word, become presences, not apparitions.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/making-nepal-s-history-colourful">Making Nepal’s history colourful</a>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230331140328_2e69a76e1e47c365ced4a683bc4080767cfae90b0eaf15bd93c8f6ba2c7f2c17.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20230331140328_2e69a76e1e47c365ced4a683bc4080767cfae90b0eaf15bd93c8f6ba2c7f2c17" data-rendition-name="original" width="3500" height="2333" loading="lazy" alt="Samagra Shah 2"> <figcaption>Photo: Samagra Shah</figcaption> </figure>  You draw a figuration of a mountain-like or glacial scene that dramatically occupies one portion of the wall of the exhibition space. It has an urgent quality of authenticity perhaps due to the direct and intimate presence of the artist’s hand evident in its construction. Immediately, it evokes the notion of the unseen and buried, and that theme is amplified by the line work that visually resembles radio wave frequencies as it extends the piece outwards. Can you comment about its inclusion and how it appears to be related to the specificity of the site of the exhibition in the festival and in Nepal? &nbsp; During the pandemic I rediscovered my love for drawing I first learnt when I was studying architecture. But it is not until now, after the pandemic, that I feel I understand it a bit more. Drawing has become a way of understanding better how perception works. It requires a combination of observation and meditation, I draw best when I stop looking and I start evoking. I draw what I want to see, and so for PhotoKTM I decided to use one of the walls at gallery Mcube to draw a melting iceberg. Icebergs being this poignant topic of the Anthropocene, but also being such a monument for time and Earth’s geological history.&nbsp; The process of drawing is a process of apparitions, as it requires making the image appear. This is also inter-connected to the notion of self-insertion previously discussed. But it also relates to my visit to PhotoKTM, I wanted to make something that would only be possible if I was on-site. Drawing an iceberg requires the lines to be in some state of stillness that reflect the ice, but also of movement that may reflect the energy of melting. This energy is also inter-connected to the energy consumed by the digital clouds.&nbsp; Drawing this piece is a very moving process for me because it makes me feel that I am in the presence of something that in some years will almost be gone. Something that took almost 1.5 million years to form will be gone in a decade. The iceberg speaks to me about our inability to act on a crisis that was declared more than 50 years ago. This speaks of course of how change works, as an incremental process, but also to our lack of imaginaries on the face of this beautiful, overwhelming, alive nature that we are experiencing today. This monstrously alive nature with its floods, its earthquakes, its fires, its tsunamis, and its rising sea levels. With its disappearing species, with its uncontrollable forces that remind us of our brevity. What better way of communicating this than making a big drawing that will be erased as the next exhibition comes? Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/portrait-of-a-photographer-in-rural-nepal">Portrait of a photographer in rural Nepal</a>, Monika Deupala

Anthropocene in Art

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150240/63fe12659c7e80680e0da51ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="667"/><figcaption>Travellers cross the Narayani River at Pitauji Ghat, down the river from Narayanghat in 1967. Logs are piled across the river, which will be brought over to be hauled to India. Photo: DAVE HOHL/NEPAL PEACE CORPS PHOTO HISTORY PROJECT</figcaption></figure>The fifth edition of PhotoKTM is coming to town for a month-long festival of various lens-based work. From 25 February-31 March, photo.circle’s bi-annual festival aims to create resources for visual storytellers, researchers, educators, activists and other cultural producers to engage with social change.The theme this year is the natural world, and PhotoKTM 5 will have over 60 participants from 16 countries to highlight ‘non-human entities’, re-learn histories and pay attention, encouraging participants to imagine ways to co-exist and co-habitat this earth.The opening on 24 February at Bhandarkhal in the Patan Darbar Square will feature an immersive audio-visual performance, curated by Irina Giri and musical performances by artists Pushpa Palanchoke and Ser o Dúo, and the Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory Choir, accompanied with visual projections by Phatcowlee.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150240/63fe12679c7e80680e0da51fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="667"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150240/63fe126b9c7e80680e0da520jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="667"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Chitwan National Park will see activities from 3-6 March. Indian filmmaker Amar Kanwar will teach a five-week course ‘Learning from Doubt’ on crime, politics, human rights, and ecology.PhotoKTM 5 will also have Bangladeshi artist, curator and teacher Munem Wasif, Swiss artist and writer Uriel Orlow, Indian filmmaker Sriram Murali, the Feather Library, Alana Hunt from Miriwoong country in the north-west of Australia, Mexican/British multidisciplinary visual artist Monica Alcazar Duarte, among others. Nepal Picture Library, and KTK-Belt Project which works on biodiversity preservation in eastern Nepal will also be presenting their work at the festival.<figure><figcaption>Photo: MONICA ALCAZAR-DUARTE</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150240/63fe126e9c7e80680e0da521jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="667"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150240/63fe12719c7e80680e0da522jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="667"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>PhotoKTM also hosts a research residency, and this year it is being organised in collaboration with Jatayu Vulture Restaurant in Nawalparasi, and Bird Conservation Nepal (BCN).The South Asia Incubator for emerging and mid-career visual practitioners will allow participants to engage with global professionals and provide inputs to exhibit, publish and develop practices.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150240/63fe12749c7e80680e0da523jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="800"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><h2>EXHIBITIONS</h2>As We Know Them: Bird Names in Tharu25 Feb - 31 March 2023 | 11am - 7pmKhapinchhenSungabha: Encounters in the Wild25 Feb - 31 March 2023 | 11:00 am - 7:00 pmDhaugalA Very Clear Picture25 Feb - 31 March 2023 | 11:00 am - 7:00 pmPatan HouseThe Skin of Chitwan25 Feb - 31 March 2023 | 11am - 7pmBahadur Shah HallIkamo Tlalli – Earthless25 Feb - 31 March 2023 | 11am - 7pmGallery MCubeDrawing From Nature25 Feb - 31 March 2023 | 11:00 am - 7:00 pmDhaugalMinmini25 Feb - 31 March 2023 | 11am - 7pmChyasal<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150240/63fe12779c7e80680e0da524jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2007" height="1000">The World like a Jewel in the Hand25 Feb - 31 March 2023 | 11am - 7pmBahadur Shah HallChhimeki Chara25 Feb - 31 March 2023 | 11:00 am - 7:00 pmChyasalSeeds Shall Set Us Free25 Feb - 31 March 2023 | 11am - 7pmGallery MCubeIndigenous Knowledge Portal25 Feb - 31 March 2023 | 11am - 7pmKhapinchhenFeather Library25 Feb - 31 March 2023 | 11am - 7pmChyasalWhat Plants Were Called Before They Had a Name25 Feb - 31 March 2023 | 11am - 7pmKhapinchhenSearching for the European Roller25 Feb - 31 March 2023 | 11am - 7pmNamkhaFestival attendance is free.  <a href="http://www.photoktm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.photoktm.com&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1677293192940000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3fkMCuwY0Tf44VdZelfbDx">www.photoktm.com</a>

PhotoKTM 5’s visual extravaganza

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161144/636d1d189c7e80680e0af393jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1537" height="1185"/>Jayan Madhikarmi is the winner of the 2021 Kora Cycling Click 2 Win photo contest 2021(#MYKORACHALLENGE).  The winner received a free roundtrip ticket to Istanbul sponsored by Turkish Airlines, which has been partnering with the organisers for the past three years. The winner was selected by professional judges and based on Facebook likes. Turkish Airlines has been partnering with the Kora Cycling event organized by Social Tours and Kathmandu Cycle City Network, supported by Pangro with 3,000 cyclists every year.

Turkish Airlines and #MyKoraChallenge

<figure><img width="3000" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151156/636d11589c7e80680e0a9881jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>The mustard fields of Chobhar have been turned into an amusement park. All photos: SCOTT FAIIA</figcaption></figure>Nepal is known the world over for its majestic mountains and historic monuments, but for American development worker <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19735#.YX-M7FVBypo">Scott Faiia</a> there are two more reasons why Nepal is irresistible: “The people are very amiable, and they smile a lot.”Turn to any page in his picture book Changing Kathmandu and this is evident: children and the elderly are captured in a state of sincere bliss without affectations. What is more, Faiia follows the same people in the same places over the decades, as a visual record of the passage of time.  In a neighbourhood in Bhaktapur, Maiya Shahi sits in her fruit shop in her black-and-red haku patasi garb. The year is 1992, and she is turning a cotton wick in between her fingers. Faiia returns to the shop in 2009 and 2018 – besides fruits she now also sells clothing and other merchandise. Despite the intervening 26 years, the shopkeeper still looks directly at the camera with the same spontaneous smile.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/portrait-of-a-photographer-in-rural-nepal/">Portrait of a photographer in rural Nepal</a>, Monika Duepala <figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151156/636d115c9c7e80680e0a9882jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151156/636d11609c7e80680e0a9883jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151156/636d11639c7e80680e0a9884jpeg.jpg" alt="">Change is the central theme of Faiia’s meticulous repeat photography. Ever since 1988, the former Nepal country director of Oxfam has seen the Valley transformed. Neighbourhoods have become unrecognisable, neighbours have moved on.  The undulating mustard fields of Chobhar have been turned into an amusement park. The crisp view of the Boudhanath stupa as seen from Gujeswori is now obstructed by a concrete jungle, and a layer of smog. “Life and places are not static,” he says. “But the problem with Kathmandu Valley is that the changes are unmanaged and out of order.” This is evident from the pictures of Asan road photographed in 1988, 2009 and 2018. The changes are dramatic, with the fronts of the houses dangling with mannequins, people peep out of the windows with a sense of loss.  <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/making-nepals-history-colourful/">Making Nepal’s history colourful</a>, Kanak Mani Dixit <figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151156/636d11679c7e80680e0a9885jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151156/636d116a9c7e80680e0a9886jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151156/636d116d9c7e80680e0a9887jpeg.jpg" alt="">Still, many things remain the same in this eternal city. The people Faiia follows have grown older, frailer in some cases, but still flash that happy smile. Concrete high rises have come up, but the city cores of Bhaktapur and Patan have been built back better after the 2015 earthquake. Faiia is not against development, his work documents progress as well. The enamel on a carved torana of a Ganesh temple in Patan has been removed to reveal the original texture of the wood. The Akash Bhairab temple in Indra Chok has been restored. And in the midst of it all there are always people, devotees, shoppers, children returning from school, witnesses to the transformation -- all smiling.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepals-past-present-and-future-in-a-photo/">Nepal’s past, present and future in a photo</a>, Bhumi Ghimiré <img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151156/636d11719c7e80680e0a9888jpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151156/636d11759c7e80680e0a9889jpeg.jpg" alt="">The enamel on a carved torana of a Ganesh temple in Patan has been removed to reveal the original texture of the wood. Meme is a resident of Bouddha, and when Faiia first photographed him looking out of his window in 1988, he was 47. The photographer went back to take pictures of him again and again in 2008, 2017 and 2018.  “When I went to see him again in 2017, he opened the door, asked me to wait, went inside and brought the picture I had taken of him in 1988,” Faiia recalls.  Each of the added years brings out in Meme a deep sense of contentment with life.  His eyes have seen everything, but they are not tired. In fact, they look beyond to the future, anticipating further transformations. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19789#.YX-e4S8w3u0">The first photographs of us</a>, Kanak Mani Dixit <img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151156/636d11789c7e80680e0a988ajpeg.jpg" alt=""><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151156/636d117c9c7e80680e0a988bjpeg.jpg" alt="">The Ganesh Mandir in 1991 (left) and 2009 (right).Faiia did not receive any formal photography training, and it is a personal hobby he took up as a way “to keep balance in life”. During his time in Ethiopia in the 1980s, the country was going through the horrors of a civil war and famine. He was managing food distribution for millions of internally displaced people, and Faiia lost several of his own staff.“It was very grim. Photography was a way for me to get away from the violence,” he says, “not to connect the dots in a war but to turn my attention to something else.” It was his Nikon that helped him find beauty and meaning in the world’s other trouble spots where he has served: Somalia, Sudan, Haiti. Faiia first came up with the idea to do a picture series of the same people and places of Kathmandu Valley when he was going rummaging through some old boxes of prints. “I found many old photos that I had taken in the past and the idea was born,” he says. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/photojournalism-looking-for-solutions/">Photojournalism looking for solutions</a>, Min Ratna Bajracharya

Ashish Dhakal

Kathmandu’s passage of time in photos

<figure><img width="1310" height="1292" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151112/636d07509c7e80680e0a5fb4jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Danish Siddiqui 1983-2021</figcaption></figure>Ten years ago, some of us young photojournalists got recruited by Reuters news agency, and were all flown to Bangkok for a Managing Hostile Environments Training.That is where I first met Danish Siddiqui, during sessions in which veteran war correspondents trained us in how to keep safe in conflict zones. Danish went into many areas wracked by war and disasters after that, earning a reputation for getting photographs that portrayed human suffering and survival with empathy and sensitivity.Despite all that training and experience, Danish was at the wrong place at the wrong time when he was caught in the crossfire between Afghan Special Forces and the Taliban in Kandahar on 16 July. He along with a senior Afghan officer were killed.  <figure><img width="1236" height="823" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151112/636d07539c7e80680e0a5fb5jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Nepali photojournalists on 20 July paid tribute to Danish Siddiqui, who was killed while covering Afghanistan this week.</figcaption></figure>We had become good friends in Bangkok, and had kept in touch. When I had gone to Mumbai on assignment I stayed in his flat, and we went around together. I had chatted with him on WhatsApp just last week. I saw his photos on social media, and thought, “Oh, so he is now in Afghanistan”, and liked them.Danish had a can-do attitude and often ended up in the toughest assignments: in Afghanistan, Mosul in Iraq, the anti-Muslim pogroms in Delhi last year, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests, and the Covid crisis. <figure><img width="2028" height="1124" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151112/636d07569c7e80680e0a5fb6jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Danish Siddiqui and Navesh Chitrakar (second and third from left, back row) in Bangkok in 2009 during a Reuters training on managing risk while covering dangerous situations.</figcaption></figure>He was also sent to Kathmandu after <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/kundadixit/2015/05/27/a-month-that-felt-like-a-year/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the 2015 earthquake</a>. Things were topsy turvy, and we did not see each other much. But we did manage to be together to shoot survivors being pulled out of collapsed buildings in Gongabu. Danish’s pictures were stunning and shocking, but he always captured the stark reality of people caught up in unimaginable crises. Only Danish could have taken the kind of drone image of dozens of funeral pyres burning at once in a Delhi crematory earlier this year — showing the world the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&amp;cx=bead8272edd0f2143&amp;q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/we-knew-the-tsunami-was-approaching/&amp;sa=U&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjF45XN0-vxAhVTyzgGHRl6A2QQFjAJegQIABAC&amp;usg=AOvVaw2-M6Aqr-Q_bh9MP6fz5PpN" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">catastrophe that the coronavirus</a> had caused in India. <figure><img width="1876" height="984" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151112/636d07599c7e80680e0a5fb7jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>All photos: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters</figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1718" height="1150" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151112/636d075c9c7e80680e0a5fb8jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Another photograph showed two elderly Covid-19 patients sharing a bed in a Delhi hospital. The pictures told stories that pages and pages of text could not about the true extent of the crisis caused by the pandemic.In Nepal in 2015, while other photojournalists took pictures of ruined temples, Danish concentrated on telling human interest stories. His photograph of a young girl in a hospital bed in Kathmandu, her broken legs attached to plastic water bottled filled with water for traction showed how medical personnel had to improvise to care for the wounded. <figure><img width="1870" height="1276" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151112/636d07609c7e80680e0a5fb9jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Some of Danish’s photographs from the Battle of Mosul in 2016 as Iraqi and coalition forces fought Islamic State fighters are remembered for their vivid portrayal of the intensity of violence he witnessed.But the pictures that earned Danish Siddiqui the Pulitzer for Feature Photography in 2018 was the series he did on the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/ramadan-in-exile/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rohingya refugees</a> fleeing Burma by boat. One image stands out: an exhausted and drenched woman near collapse on a beach in Bangladesh after a harrowing boat journey from Burma. Even without looking at the credit line for photographs, I would instinctively be able to tell which photograph was Danish’s. He was always one step ahead of other photojournalists in bringing out the human element. He was driven by a hunger to tell the unblemished truth through his photography.  <figure><img width="1876" height="984" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151112/636d07639c7e80680e0a5fbajpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1872" height="1232" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151112/636d07669c7e80680e0a5fbbjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Us photojournalists are often blamed by society for being voyeurs or insensitive paparazzi harassing people, and invading their privacy. Danish was aware of such criticism, and he approached each situation with a deep desire to tell the world the real story of suffering and survival. Whether it was the photograph of a Muslim man being mercilessly beaten by a Hindu extremist mob in Delhi during riots, or the photographs from the frontlines of the Afghan war, Danish witnessed it all on our behalf, often risking his life doing it. It was not safe being a Muslim man out on the lawless streets of Delhi last year, or travelling in an armoured personnel carrier with Afghan commandos. But for Danish this was his work, his life. <figure><img width="1800" height="1136" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151112/636d07699c7e80680e0a5fbcjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Danish was criticised in India for transmitting graphic images of the funeral pyres and the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-real-cost-of-nepals-second-wave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">suffering during the second wave</a>. After the Nepal earthquake, we were accused of sensationalising the suffering. But it is always important to tell the truth, especially when governments try to play down the true extent of the pandemic. Photographs do not lie. And it was the pictures of the Nepal earthquake which went around the world that galvanised relief aid for the country.After I heard the news on Friday of Danish’s death in the line of duty, I could not bear to dig up old photographs of us together, or to look at these pictures. I did not want to read about how he died, although I found out that he had been wounded in the hand by shrapnel a day earlier in Kandahar. <figure><img width="1644" height="1090" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151112/636d076d9c7e80680e0a5fbdjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Danish was not just a war photographer. One of his photos that I admire the most is the technically difficult one he took inside a dark cinema hall in Mumbai in 2010, where the movie Dilwale Dulahniya Le Jayenge had been running continuously for 15 years.The enraptured faces of the viewers, their sheer enjoyment and the ambience of the cinema is so beautifully captured that it is uplifting, and at the same time informs us of the power of Bollywood cinema in India. <figure><img width="1798" height="1202" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110151112/636d07709c7e80680e0a5fbejpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>A year after this photograph was taken, Danish and I had gone to see a movie with Akshay Kumar together in Mumbai and we talked about that image and how it came about.In our last chat, he wanted to know about the Covid situation in Nepal, I asked him about his two young daughters who are living with their German mother. My son and his first daughter were born at about the same time.He liked Nepal a lot, and wanted to visit with his family — for once not to cover a disaster but to enjoy the sights. I was looking forward to it, and letting our children get to know each other. It was not to be. Farewell, Danish. We will miss you.Navesh Chitrakar is a Reuters photojournalist in Nepal.Watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1KEA_Ab0Bg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TedX talk</a> by Danish Siddiqui about his photographs of Rohingya refugees that won him a Pulitzer in 2018.

Farewell, Danish

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b94899c7e80680e06f20ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>All photos: MONIKA DEUPALA</figcaption></figure>There is a wedding in progress in <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=12202#.YNmx8S2B2CQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jumla’s remote Sinja Valley</a>, and even here guests with smartphones are taking TikTok videos and photos of the ceremony.Even though everyone has a phone camera, the services of Nani Maya Buda are in high demand in the village of Gothijyula.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b948c9c7e80680e06f20bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="658" height="1000"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b948f9c7e80680e06f20cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="968">She is attending as the official photographer of the wedding with her Nikon D80 digital camera. Nani Maya never went to school, and cannot or read or write, but she is a self-taught professional photographer.In this <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/holding-up-the-whole-sky-in-jumla/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">culturally conservative society</a>, women are usually seen at home, tending livestock, or toiling in the fields. But Nani Maya stands out for her entrepreneurship and self-assurance in her new job."Could you please tilt your head a bit? Look at the camera. And we are done,” she tells a customer in her makeshift studio behind her electrical shop. She then takes the memory card to her laptop, edits the photos and prints them out.It is a busy day at the studio, and customers are lining up outside for their turn. Some of them can be quite demanding, but Nani Maya is patient and tries to meet their requests.Gothijyula village is a local hub in Sinja Valley with government offices, banks, and a rural market: residents of many surrounding villages travel there for official documents, to deposit money, and to do some shopping."I want sindur on my forehead," says one. "Make my skin look smooth and less dark,” demands another, "can you get rid of the moles in my face?"Nani Maya replies: “I will make you look like a heroine in a Bollywood movie.” There are peals of laughter from the women.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b94929c7e80680e06f20djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Nani Maya Buda has been running her small shop here selling electrical goods for ten years. The shelves are filled with mobile phones, batteries, watches, flash-lights, and other goods. Seeing the demand for mugshots for citizenship certificates, bank forms and school admissions, her husband started the small photo studio.After he got a salaried job, he got his wife to take over the shop, and also trained her to take and edit pictures in a rudimentary studio, which is just a white cloth hanging on the wall outside the shop where there is more light. Customers sit on an empty oil drum, while Nani Maya tilts their faces just right.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b94959c7e80680e06f20ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b94989c7e80680e06f20fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b949b9c7e80680e06f210jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b949e9c7e80680e06f211jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="947"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b94a19c7e80680e06f212jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="947"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b94a49c7e80680e06f213jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>"I learned quickly, but made mistakes at first,” Nani Maya recalls. “Once I accidentally formatted the entire drive and lost all data, and sometimes I waste too much paper while printing photographs."Nani Maya’s daughter died in an accident, and she now lives in a rented room with her husband and a younger son. The older son goes to school in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/starting-nepals-green-school-movement/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Surkhet</a>.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b94a79c7e80680e06f214jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b94aa9c7e80680e06f215jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b94ad9c7e80680e06f216jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>She is now well-known in the village, and the shop is usually crowded, especially at school admission time when she is taking pictures back-to-back of young students. She is thrilled that they have a chance at education that she never did.During festivals and religious functions, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/jumlas-great-leap-into-the-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">people in this region</a> dance the deuda, holding hands. Earlier, Nani Maya would have joined them, but these days she is too busy taking pictures and videos. Some of the dancers give her their phones to take pictures of them (below).<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121152/636b94b19c7e80680e06f217jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="984"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>After a day at work in her shop studio when her husband come back from his job, Nani Maya turns to her household chores: collecting firewood to cook dinner."I am still learning to take better photos for my customers,” she says, as she inspects a visitor’s Canon EOS D7. “I want to save and buy a better camera like this someday.”This photo story was made during the International Storytelling Workshop 2021, hosted by photo.circle (Nepal) in collaboration with Oslo Metropolitan University (Norway) and Pathshala South Asian Media Academy (Bangladesh).

Monika Deupala

Portrait of a photographer in rural Nepal

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131120/636ced339c7e80680e09adb0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>All photos: AJAY NARSINGH RANA</figcaption></figure>Nature प्रकृति (n.) All the plants, animals, and things that exist in the universe that are not made by peopleOxford DictionaryFrom the High Himalaya to the flatlands of Nepal, we in this land have been blessed with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/between-existence-and-extinction-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">nature at its most resplendent</a>.It is when we are prohibited from immersing ourselves in the wilderness like we are now, that we learn to value it even more. We relive the experience of sauntering along single tracks through forests of rhododendron this time of year, and ending up near a gushing waterfall. Or, climbing steeply to a high meadow to be greeted with an expansive mountain vista.Quiet walks inside misty sal forests of the Tarai, the horizon limited by the depth of trees. The heart skips a beat with excitement, scanning the undergrowth, ears strained for an animal’s footfall on dry leaves.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131120/636ced379c7e80680e09adb1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1500"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131120/636ced399c7e80680e09adb2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1500"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>One does not need to go far. Just on the outskirts of Kathmandu, are terraces dyed yellow with mustard fields in Bungamati, glistening with dew as the morning sun burns away the fog.Nature plays a vital role in the spiritual and physical health of human beings, but cities expand and encroach upon the wilderness shrinking the spaces that the living world once occupied. Nature retreats, blighted by the pollution of sound, light, air and water.Being in nature changes us, allowing our rejuvenation. It allows us to contemplate the ‘being’ in human being. We find solace there, and are forced to think about how things should be, how they can be better. We can process creative thoughts and allow new ideas to be born. Above all, nature is much-needed therapy, a balm for our overburdened selves, and a journey of self-discovery.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131120/636ced3c9c7e80680e09adb3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131120/636ced3f9c7e80680e09adb4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1500"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131120/636ced429c7e80680e09adb5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1500"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>The sounds of nature heal the soul, a respite from the onslaught of the urban cacophony that defiles our urbanised existence. Sitting silently on a fallen log, we listen to birdcalls from the forest canopy as the dappled light is filled with merry song. A light breeze brushes across the tops of trees, making the leaves sigh.Warblers flit from one branch to the other, more heard than seen as they refuse to sit still in their search for food. Birds like the Rufous Sibia whistle from a bush, while the crook…cru..croo call comes from a Spotted Dove perching on a nearby tree.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131120/636ced459c7e80680e09adb6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131120/636ced479c7e80680e09adb7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131120/636ced4a9c7e80680e09adb8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Apart from these larger life forms, there is the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/its-a-small-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fascinating small world</a>. Tiny plants and animals that make a large part of what the forest is, and seeing it functioning in cosmic harmony reminds us of the importance of all species great and small in keeping the ecosystem in a state of equilibrium.The giant moss-covered tree trunk glows in a shaft of sunlight, and on the forest floor tiny wildflowers emerge from underneath blades of grass. Life here is reincarnated continuously from decay and death.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131120/636ced4d9c7e80680e09adb9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2000" height="1333"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131120/636ced509c7e80680e09adbajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Nature nudges us to think of creation as not just a few species, but a collective and collaborative whole, supporting a multitude of life forms. This bonding with the primeval forces us to see our own existence on a timescale that transcends our short lives, it instils empathy and patience in ourselves.This is when we discern how absurd it is for a single species to dominate and control the world. Scientist and conservationist Rachel Carson once said: “In nature, nothing exists alone.”Let us celebrate Nepal’s natural diversity and cherish this fragile gift we were handed down by the creator, not to keep, but to protect. Nature provides us serenity, hope, and the knowledge to help us along the path called life.Ajay Narsingh Rana is a nature, wildlife photographer and, a blogger in prakritinepal.com, wilderness first responder, and a rural first aid trainer.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131120/636ced539c7e80680e09adbbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1500">

Nature's fragile gift to Nepal

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111144/636b85169c7e80680e0677d3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>All photos: AJAY NARSINGH RANA</figcaption></figure>Nature प्रकृति (n.) All the plants, animals, and things that exist in the universe that are not made by peopleOxford DictionaryFrom the High Himalaya to the flatlands of Nepal, we in this land have been blessed with <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/between-existence-and-extinction-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">nature at its most resplendent</a>.It is when we are prohibited from immersing ourselves in the wilderness like we are now, that we learn to value it even more. We relive the experience of sauntering along single tracks through forests of rhododendron this time of year, and ending up near a gushing waterfall. Or, climbing steeply to a high meadow to be greeted with an expansive mountain vista.Quiet walks inside misty sal forests of the Tarai, the horizon limited by the depth of trees. The heart skips a beat with excitement, scanning the undergrowth, ears strained for an animal’s footfall on dry leaves.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111144/636b85199c7e80680e0677d4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1500"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111144/636b851c9c7e80680e0677d5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1500"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>One does not need to go far. Just on the outskirts of Kathmandu, are terraces dyed yellow with mustard fields in Bungamati, glistening with dew as the morning sun burns away the fog.Nature plays a vital role in the spiritual and physical health of human beings, but cities expand and encroach upon the wilderness shrinking the spaces that the living world once occupied. Nature retreats, blighted by the pollution of sound, light, air and water.Being in nature changes us, allowing our rejuvenation. It allows us to contemplate the ‘being’ in human being. We find solace there, and are forced to think about how things should be, how they can be better. We can process creative thoughts and allow new ideas to be born. Above all, nature is much-needed therapy, a balm for our overburdened selves, and a journey of self-discovery.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111144/636b851f9c7e80680e0677d6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111144/636b85229c7e80680e0677d7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1500"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111144/636b85259c7e80680e0677d8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1500"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The sounds of nature heal the soul, a respite from the onslaught of the urban cacophony that defiles our urbanised existence. Sitting silently on a fallen log, we listen to birdcalls from the forest canopy as the dappled light is filled with merry song. A light breeze brushes across the tops of trees, making the leaves sigh.Warblers flit from one branch to the other, more heard than seen as they refuse to sit still in their search for food. Birds like the Rufous Sibia whistle from a bush, while the crook…cru..croo call comes from a Spotted Dove perching on a nearby tree.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111144/636b85289c7e80680e0677d9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111144/636b852b9c7e80680e0677dajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111144/636b852e9c7e80680e0677dbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Apart from these larger life forms, there is the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/its-a-small-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fascinating small world</a>. Tiny plants and animals that make a large part of what the forest is, and seeing it functioning in cosmic harmony reminds us of the importance of all species great and small in keeping the ecosystem in a state of equilibrium.The giant moss-covered tree trunk glows in a shaft of sunlight, and on the forest floor tiny wildflowers emerge from underneath blades of grass. Life here is reincarnated continuously from decay and death.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111144/636b85329c7e80680e0677dcjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2000" height="1333"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111144/636b85359c7e80680e0677ddjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Nature nudges us to think of creation as not just a few species, but a collective and collaborative whole, supporting a multitude of life forms. This bonding with the primeval forces us to see our own existence on a timescale that transcends our short lives, it instils empathy and patience in ourselves.This is when we discern how absurd it is for a single species to dominate and control the world. Scientist and conservationist Rachel Carson once said: “In nature, nothing exists alone.”Let us celebrate Nepal’s natural diversity and cherish this fragile gift we were handed down by the creator, not to keep, but to protect. Nature provides us serenity, hope, and the knowledge to help us along the path called life.Ajay Narsingh Rana is a nature, wildlife photographer and, a blogger in prakritinepal.com, wilderness first responder, and a rural first aid trainer.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111144/636b85389c7e80680e0677dejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1500">

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

Kathmandu airport to cut flight hours

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

High living below the Himalaya

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

Back to the land in the cities

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