<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be8299c7e80680e087842jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2405" height="1604"/><figcaption>All photos: MONIKA DEUPALA</figcaption></figure>Traditionally, the average lifespan of a Nepali used to be 40-45. Child mortality rate was high, and very few people lived to a ripe old age.Which meant that living long was a cause for celebration in the family, clan and community. People in Kathmandu Valley's Newa community celebrate 'Janko' or 'Buda Pasni' at milestones of 77, 82, 88, 99 and 105 years.Look at it like a birthday, but is performed every decade or so after a person crosses 77. In case of couples, the Janko is performed according to the husband's age. For a single person, the date of birth and birth charts are consulted.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWfPedYI9Nk&amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;fbclid=IwAR10NOtHZJuTaE5G5KhforoSFRPhTDA6f_-UED6-W5mG8UnXujuDUajACMkThe first Janku known as Bhim Ratharohan is performed when a person is 77 years, 7 months and 7 days old. The grandchildren pull the chariots and the family tours the city and temple amidst much fanfare.The second is Chandra Ratharohan performed at 82 years, 4 months and 4 days. Dev Ratharohan is the third Janko at 88 years, 8 months and 8 days. Divya Ratharohan at 99 years, 9 months and 9 days and the last one when a person reaches 105 years, 8 months and 8 days.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be82c9c7e80680e087843jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="4096" height="2730"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be8309c7e80680e087844jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2520" height="1680"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be8339c7e80680e087845jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="4096" height="2730"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be8379c7e80680e087846jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="4096" height="2730"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>As people live longer, the processions in which elderly citizens are paraded around town have become more and more common. Photographs from a Jankothis week of Bishnu Bhakta Deupala and Jas Maya Deupala, who are celebrating 77 years, 7 months and 7 days.

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Long live tradition

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bef224b0ad905ca02ef8bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2405" height="1604"/><figcaption>All photos: MONIKA DEUPALA</figcaption></figure>Traditionally, the average lifespan of a Nepali used to be 40-45. Child mortality rate was high, and very few people lived to a ripe old age.Which meant that living long was a cause for celebration in the family, clan and community. People in Kathmandu Valley's Newa community celebrate 'Janko' or 'Buda Pasni' at milestones of 77, 82, 88, 99 and 105 years.Look at it like a birthday, but is performed every decade or so after a person crosses 77. In case of couples, the Janko is performed according to the husband's age. For a single person, the date of birth and birth charts are consulted.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWfPedYI9Nk&amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;fbclid=IwAR10NOtHZJuTaE5G5KhforoSFRPhTDA6f_-UED6-W5mG8UnXujuDUajACMkThe first Janku known as Bhim Ratharohan is performed when a person is 77 years, 7 months and 7 days old. The grandchildren pull the chariots and the family tours the city and temple amidst much fanfare.The second is Chandra Ratharohan performed at 82 years, 4 months and 4 days. Dev Ratharohan is the third Janko at 88 years, 8 months and 8 days. Divya Ratharohan at 99 years, 9 months and 9 days and the last one when a person reaches 105 years, 8 months and 8 days.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bef254b0ad905ca02ef8cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="4096" height="2730"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bef284b0ad905ca02ef8djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2520" height="1680"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bef2b4b0ad905ca02ef8ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="4096" height="2730"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bef2f4b0ad905ca02ef8fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="4096" height="2730"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>As people live longer, the processions in which elderly citizens are paraded around town have become more and more common. Photographs from a Jankothis week of Bishnu Bhakta Deupala and Jas Maya Deupala, who are celebrating 77 years, 7 months and 7 days.

Monika Deupala

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96999c7e80680e05dc75jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="875"/>Many of the everyday items Nepalis traditionally used in their homes are going or gone. So have the words that described them. Plastic buckets have replaced brass gagro. Linoleum floors have taken the place of sukul straw mats.Most young Nepalis do not know what petaro, sakari, chulesi, dalo, doko, theki, dhiki, dheri, kolhu, sandook or mandro mean. Nepali words that described many of these objects are now extinct. Tharu words for utensils, Gurung vocabulary for household furniture and Rai or Limbu terms for farm equipment are all endangered.Judith Conant Chase has been in Nepal for nearly 50 years, and has made it her life’s work to collect and preserve many of these traditional objects. In 2012, she set up the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Return-of-the-past,907" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Living Traditions Museum at the Amatya Sattal in the Changu Narayan</a> complex to house her collection, so it could be seen by as many Nepalis as possible. By preserving the objects she has also saved the Nepali words for them.When the earthquake struck on 25 April 2015, Kathmandu Valley’s oldest monument zone was badly damaged. Some of the 1,300-year-old Licchavi era temples went down, the museum was damaged, but the exhibits were intact (including the Tharu clay pot hanging from the rafters in the photo, right). The structure has now been rebuilt, and Chase is trying to have the museum reopened in the new year.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a969b9c7e80680e05dc76jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="803" height="516">Travelling across Nepal in the 1970s, Chase admired the simplicity of people’s lives, their cheerfulness despite hardships, and the everyday handmade objects they used around the house — like the umbrella that Gurung villagers in Bhujung wove from nigalo strips and leaves, which Chase found ingenious because it also kept a farmer’s back dry while bending over to tend the fields.Maithili jewellery fascinated her, especially the sculpted silver bracelets that had strips joined into a ripple pattern. Over decades of being worn during work, the metal was weathered and polished into a shiny metallic brilliance. Doko baskets are perfectly crafted through a technique handed down from generation to generation of Gurung families, as are the felted carpets and capes of villagers in Ghandruk, and in Kathmandu the intricately carved bapa, used as a shrine in Newa homes. Another example, from Humla, was the colourful Nyinba woollen greatcoat, worn once a year during festivals (pictured overleaf).All these <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/art-of-everyday-living/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">items, lovingly preserved</a>, will be returned to their cubicles and exhibit cases once the Living Traditions Museum reopens. Chase’s book, Living Traditions of Nepal: The Beauty of Purposeful Living, is an encyclopaedic guide to the artefacts, and more.The voluminous 440-page, coffee table book is superbly illustrated and designed, and divided into sections representing the Himal, Midhills, Tarai and Kathmandu Valley. The text is arranged like extended captions, and interspersed with extracts from Chase’s journal of four decades ago.Chase decided to use her journal entries because the words recorded her feelings more accurately at the time, making the memories so much more real.One such extract, after seeing a sadhu at Pashupati on Shivaratri: ‘I feel invigorated, intoxicated, inspired, as if being in love. There is a whole way of being in the world that I had only sensed dimly… There is a feeling of a secret that everyone else knows that I am just beginning to glimpse, frustrating and enticing together.’She marvels at the ‘hanging life support system’ of Tharu homes, where food and storage items dangle from the ceiling, where protective smoke of the central fire preserved and cured stored food items. This was technology developed over centuries ‘out of a particular set of natural resource and household needs’.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a969e9c7e80680e05dc77jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="308" height="400">‘The lives of the Nepali people and their art objects are elegant, inspired, vigorous, humorous, vibrant, romantic, sometimes even a bit wild,’ writes Chase. ‘They are woven, hammered, carved, turned, painted out of the hand of artists, both household and professional.’<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a969f9c7e80680e05dc78jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="312" height="300">The Beauty of Purposeful Living: Living Traditions of Nepalby Judith Conant Chase<a href="https://serindia.com/products/the-beauty-of-purposeful-living-living-traditions-of-nepal-by-judith-conant-chase" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Serindia Publications (July, 2019)</a>Hardcover: 440 pages, $100ISBN: 978-1932476-90-3<h2>A life in the most precious place on earth</h2><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96a09c7e80680e05dc79jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125">Judith Conant Chase still remembers flying into Kathmandu in October of 1974, looking out of the window at the wrinkled terraces of rice fields, forested hills and the snowy mountains beyond, and telling herself: “This is the place.”The American had come to Nepal to try to climb a mountain in the Langtang Valley, and 45 years later she is still here. Along the way, she has done pioneering work to document Nepal’s crafts, joined an ashram, started an organic agriculture movement, collaborated on a project to market ceramic products and started a museum.“Nepal was so casual, and of the earth. It connected to nature in so many ways in the puja and the way people worshipped,” recalls Chase, who resonated with  the Hindu mantra ‘Satyam Shivam Sundaram’ — truth is God, and God is beauty.She travelled across Nepal, and while many foreigners at the time marvelled at the scenery outside, Chase was drawn to the interior of people’s homes and the everyday objects they used: wooden storage bins, straw mats, bamboo baskets, clay vessels, metal craft.Chase never rushed through the countryside. She lingered and learnt from families she stayed with, collecting beautiful objects and understanding their traditional use and significance. She kept a journal, knowing that one day she would want to write a book and perhaps set up a museum.Read Also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/art-of-everyday-living/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Art of everyday living</a>, Reeti K.C.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96a39c7e80680e05dc7ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427">Both the museum and the book have happened. The Beauty of Purposeful Living and the Living Traditions Museum in Changu Narayan complement each other. The museum was badly damaged in the 2015 earthquake (left), has been rebuilt, and nearly five years later it is to reopen.“It was so impressive to me that there were no roads, and yet people were so capable, so self-sufficient,” Chase recalls of her travels through Nepal in the 1970s.Chase met and married <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Jim-Danisch-and-Barbara-Adams%20-passed-away-this-month,3007" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jim Danisch </a>in a Hindu ashram in Banepa in 1984. Danisch worked on a ceramics promotion project in Thimi for the German agency, GTZ, training locals to make glazed pottery and developing a new type of kiln. The two went back to California to set up a pottery business, but soon found they were getting too old to chop firewood and cut grass, so one day Judith told Jim: “Let’s go home.”They returned to Nepal, where they worked on a farm in Kavre, and put together the Living Traditions Museum (See review, opposite.) After Jim died in 2016 in Dhulikhel, Judith continued working on her book and rebuilding the museum. All the while, the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18931#.Xck2mNIza70" target="_blank" rel="noopener">organic farm in Kavre </a>demanded a lot of her time — helping villagers with pesticide and chemical-fertiliser free agriculture, preserving traditional seeds and the biodiversity of the forests.“Nepal in the monsoon is just so intoxicating. There is all this variety of words in Nepali for different types of rain, and the vegetation is so lush because of the warmth and moisture — there is extraordinary growth, which you do not have in a temperate climate,” explains Chase.In an experiment, she set aside a 1 sq m test plot in Kavre to study and classify every kind of plant that grew in it. There were 27 types, but she could identify only 18 of them. Chase thinks Nepal’s soil and fertility is so rich that artificial fertilisers are not needed — all the nutrients are already in the soil.Does it not pain her to see Nepalis not valuing nature, and the farms of Kathmandu Valley being replaced by urban sprawl? “It is not just Nepal, it is happening all over the world,” she says. “It is not exceptional, but it is tragic. Much is gone, but the vibrant traditions continue. Kathmandu Valley is one of the most precious places on earth.”

Kunda Dixit

The art of living

Violations of Nepal’s airspace during WWII

In 2025, Nepal’s Ministry of Tourism <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-everest-industry" target="_blank">added six new 8,000m peaks </a>to those listed on its website. These are subsidiary summits of <a href="https://explorersweb.com/kangchenjungas-challenging-confusing-subpeaks/" target="_blank">Kangchenjunga</a> and <a href="https://explorersweb.com/through-the-unknown-to-the-impossible-lhotse-middle/" target="_blank">Lhotse</a>, which some view as insufficiently independent to be called separate peaks. In 2024, the international mountaineering federation (UIAA) responded to a request by the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) and the government to officially recognise these peaks. While recognising that ‘there is no one definition of a “mountain” or a “peak” or a “top” or “point” in topographic terms’, and encouraging further debate the UIAA’s opinion was that the 8,000m peaks should continue to the ‘Classic 14’, first completed by Reinhold Messner in 1986. The degree of prominence and isolation of <a href="https://www.climbing.com/news/new-8000-meter-mountains-nepal/?scope=initial" target="_blank">the six new peaks </a>varies, with Yalung Kang having the strongest claim to being a separate peak with a prominence of 135m, but they are all separate enough to be included on some peak-bagging lists. The UIAA’s own list of 4,000m summits in the European Alps includes Punta Giordani with a prominence of only 6m. Whatever the case for the six peaks being geographically separate mountains, they represent significant climbing challenges. They are not minor tops that can simply be ‘bagged’ on route to a main summit. In the case of <a href="https://explorersweb.com/through-the-unknown-to-the-impossible-lhotse-middle/" target="_blank">Lhotse Middle and Lhotse Shar</a>, no one has ever managed to traverse between them and Lhotse itself.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260107080144_881321a6e46818beb7bbd4fe6f21589d89d19bf77ae8218474d373ef7ab0c431.png" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20260107080144_881321a6e46818beb7bbd4fe6f21589d89d19bf77ae8218474d373ef7ab0c431" data-rendition-name="original" width="2888" height="1590" loading="lazy" alt="New 8,000ers"><figcaption>Nepal’s 8 existing 8,000ers: Chomolungma 8,848.86, Kangchenjunga 8,586, Lhotse 8,516, Makalu 8,485, Manaslu 8,163, Dhaulagiri 8,167, Annapurna 8,091, Cho Oyu 8,201. Photo: GOOGLE EARTH PRO</figcaption></figure>   <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260107080144_27bf905c1a559c46819dc96ca33d22c27fc301d415fc034f26b8acd105c12da7.png" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20260107080144_27bf905c1a559c46819dc96ca33d22c27fc301d415fc034f26b8acd105c12da7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1750" height="976" loading="lazy" alt="New 8,000ers"><figcaption>Nepal has listed six additional 8,000ers: Yalung Kang (8,505, Yalung Kang West 8,077, Kanchenjunga Central (8,473, Kanchenjunga South 8,476, Lhotse Middle 8,410, and Lhotse Shar 8,400. Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption></figure>  Several fine routes have already been climbed on these mountains, such as Slovenians Andrej Štremfelj and Marko Prezelj’s alpine style ascent of the South-West Ridge of Kangchenjunga South. The six peaks have not yet achieved universal acceptance, but it is possible that climbing an expanded list of 20 eight-thousanders could become a new mountaineering challenge, just as the 14 classic peaks are today. It is therefore interesting to analyse who is currently closest to achieving this goal, using data from The Himalayan Database and other Internet research. The first conclusion of my analysis is that these six additional peaks have received far less attention than the classic 14 eight-thousanders. One of them, Yalung Kang West, has never been climbed or even attempted: probably because it is a subsidiary peak of <a href="https://explorersweb.com/kangchenjungas-challenging-confusing-subpeaks/" target="_blank">Yalung Kang</a> which is itself a subsidiary peak. The other five peaks have seen a total of 138 ascents. Just 101 people have ever climbed one or more of the additional peaks, which compares with 354 people who climbed Everest on a single day: 23 May 2019. Russian Evgeni Vinogradski is unique in having climbed five of the six new peaks. He has also climbed six of the classic 8,000ers, giving him a total of 11 out of the 20 peaks on the expanded list. Vinogradski is now 80 and is unlikely to increase this total. Several other former Soviet climbers have climbed three of the new peaks, having participated in the 1989 traverse of the four main summits of Kangchenjunga. This includes two legends of Soviet climbing: Kazakh Anatoli Boukreev and Ukrainian Sergey Bershov, each of whom has climbed 13 out of the 20 peaks on the extended list. Boukreev died attempting Annapurna in 1997. Bershov, one of the only men to have ever climbed Lhotse South Face, is now 78 and, although he was in good form when I met him in Chamonix last summer, he is unlikely to further extend his tally. The addition of the new peaks does not take any of these climbers beyond the total of 14 peaks achieved by the 76 climbers who have completed the classic ‘Himalayan Crown’. Of those who have climbed all 14 classic eight-thousanders, only one, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/um-hong-gil-s-project-impossible" target="_blank">Korean Um Hong-Gil</a>, has climbed any of the six additional peaks.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260107080144_5651fc6445f5e5fd838f28e1eac1da45da136b309a4a00db1e4aafa7d4836251.png" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20260107080144_5651fc6445f5e5fd838f28e1eac1da45da136b309a4a00db1e4aafa7d4836251" data-rendition-name="original" width="2142" height="1310" loading="lazy" alt="New 8,000ers"><figcaption>Only one mountaineer, Korean Um Hong-Gil, has climbed any of the six additional peaks.</figcaption></figure>  Um climbed both Lhotse Shar and Yalung Kang, giving him a total of 16 summits. He required four attempts to climb Lhotse Shar, including one attempt in which he turned back just 100m from the summit following the deaths of two teammates. He finally succeeded in 2007 via a route up the Lhotse South Face. If a race to climb all 20 eight-thousanders were to begin, Um is currently in the lead. <a href="https://www.himalayandatabase.com/" target="_blank">The Himalayan Database</a> also lists two additional mountains in Nepal not included among the peaks announced by the Ministry of Tourism: Annapurna Central and Annapurna East. If these are included, bringing the total to 22 peaks, a few additional climbers deserve mention. Poles Piotr Pustelnik and the great Jerzy Kukuczka have both climbed all 14 classic eight-thousanders as well as Annapurna East, giving them 15 out of 22. Swiss climber Erhard Loretan climbed all 14 as well, and both Annapurna subsidiary summits, giving him a total of 16 out of 22 peaks. Annapurna East has a greater prominence than some of the 6 new peaks proposed by Nepal, but Broad Peak Central in the Karakoram has the greatest prominence of any subsidiary 8000m summit. Kukuczka has also climbed Broad Peak Central, so if the list is extended to 23 peaks, he has 16, equal with Loretan and Um. Then, there is a case for Shishapangma Central in China, which further complicates the task of coming up with a definite extended list. At the moment, these subsidiary summits are not attracting a lot of attention: of the 138 summit climbs on them, only 12 occurred in the last 25 years and none since 2011. Most climbers like to have some wide recognition of a target before investing time and money in trying to achieve it, and this may make it hard to build interest. But as completing the classic 8,000m peaks starts to become a rather frequent occurrence, some may be attracted to the longer list. If this new challenge catches on, as the Ministry of Tourism presumably hopes, how long will it be before someone passes Um Hong-Gil’s total and how long before someone climbs all 20 or 22 or 23 summits? <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/dispelling-myths-about-climbing" target="_blank">Edward Morgan</a> is a British author and climber based in Switzerland. His first book, Lhotse South Face - The Wall of Legends, has been published in several languages and his second book, Chasing Mallory's Dream is due out in the UK this year.

New 8,000ers may restart peak-grabbing race

The American military action in Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicholas Maduro may redefine Nepal’s geopolitics as it juggles between three world powers, India, China and the United States.&nbsp;
Nepal’s interim government is busy preparing for elections on 5 March, and it was late issuing a statement on the American intervention in Venezuela, but the country may have to re-evaluate how it deals with its immediate neighbours and the global power.
“How does Nepal avoid being the next Ukraine or Venezuela? Small countries shouldn’t go around irritating big neighbours. And when big neighbours really get upset, they usually put up a moral fig leaf justifying their miltary action,” says energy economist Dipak Gyawali. “What we see with Venezuela today is bereft of such moral content, essentially banditry which in today’s day and age is unacceptable. Neither the rising new powers nor much of the Global South will take this lying down.”
International relations experts have said that there is now a new world order in which rules-based diplomacy has been thrown out of the window, and the world has been carved into America leading the western hemisphere, Russia is allowed to do what it wants in Ukraine and Europe, and China’s sphere of influence is now the Indo-Pacific.
Foreign affairs expert Nischal Pandey says there is a lesson for smaller nations like Nepal: “We have to be aware of the sensitivities of the major powers in the vicinity.”
There is also a lesson for smaller resource-rich countries not to give an excuse for intervention with poor governance and political instability due to inequity. In Venezuela’s case it was throttling democracy and not using its immense oil-wealth to uplift its people.
Nevertheless, the Trump administration’s abduction of a sitting president of a foreign government regardless of the dictatorial nature of his regime and Venezuela’s volatile internal politics, is illegal and breaches the international order that has been in place since after World War II and its devastation on humanity.
While Trump’s intervention in Venezuela, and threats against Colombia, Cuba and Greenland have brought international condemnation, here in Nepal it has not been taken as seriously as it should.
Says Amish Mulmi, author of the book All Roads Lead North: Nepal's Turn to China: “Some of the reaction on social media has been that of glee over the fall of a dictatorial Communist government on the other side of the world. However, the government statement about fully respecting the principles of sovereignty and the Charter of the United Nations is a strong statement that makes clear Nepal's position on the matter.”
“The abduction of Maduro is a clear sign of Trump's America ensuring its sphere of influence through might and a warning to toe the line,” Mulmi adds. “It also infringes on the sanctity of borders and the preservation of sovereignty. Trump's actions reek strongly of a bygone era of imperialistic control and resource capture.”
Venezuela has 17% of the world’s reserves of crude oil, even though refining this heavy tar-like oil will be costly, and is possible in only a few places including Texas.
“This has to do with a larger political economy of oil, the unravelling of pax Americana and the post-World war II order. This is USA’s heavy-handed response to remain on the top as well as to partly solve its debt of $39 trillion,” explains Gyawali. “But this is not going to help: China is far ahead, Russia has recovered from its 1990s low point, and manufacturing capital has moved away from America. So controlling only financial capital - and using military power so brazenly - is not going to work.”
The might also be specific lessons for Nepal as a smaller country with vast water resources. While water, unlike oil, is renewable, India’s interest in Nepal’s hydro resources cannot be ignored. Ironically, America’s capture of Venezuelan oil reserves could exacerbate climate breakdown and the melting of Himalayan glaciers, which will put Nepal’s water resources in jeopardy in the coming decades.
The only way to deal with this for Nepal and downstream India will be to build reservoirs on rivers to store monsoon precipitation, and that makes water a strategic commodity for the future.&nbsp;
“If we continue in the current mode of hydropower-biased water resources development ignoring irrigation, flood control, navigation, fisheries, tourism and other benefits, India will get the free benefit of regulated water while we pay the upstream environmental and social costs. History will blame our elected leaders for having undersold our resources,” adds Gyawali, who served as water resource minister in the early 2000s.
As for a larger geopolitical lesson: “We in Nepal are fortunate in having not one threatening hegemon but two superpowers India and China: they don’t agree with each other, but do agree on a peaceful Nepal for their own security. However, our current political leaders are irritating both the neighbours, unlike since the centuries past when our rulers looked solely after Nepal’s core interests and our neighbours knew that.”
American intervention in Venezuela also calls for strengthening of our institutions and diplomatic outreach. Nepal has been a non-aligned state, and for all its history has tried to follow a policy of equidistance between India and China. The difference with Venezuela is that Nepal has to deal with two giant neighbours, and not just one.
Says Mulmi: “It is no more only about balancing great power relations but also about benefiting from them. But that will be increasingly difficult as international law and the principles of sovereignty are encroached upon.”

Might might be right, after all

One of the few Newa towns situated outside Kathmandu Valley, Panauti still evokes the feeling of a place frozen in time.&nbsp; Largely untouched by haphazard urbanisation, this town 32km east of Kathmandu used to be a kingdom revered for the sacred confluence of the Punyamati and Rosi rivers.&nbsp; The Bramhayani temple is the site of a 12 yearly Makar Mela which is attended by devotees from as far away as India.&nbsp; Panauti’s crumbling monuments were restored in the 1990s by the French government. Temples, resting places, traditional homes were rebuilt and locals trained to revive their craft. Panauti and France marked 50 years of cooperation in September.&nbsp; However, the priceless murals on the temple walls are fading and need urgent restitution. Now, these crumbling wall paintings are meticulously documented in the Wall Paintings of Panauti and Their Context.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260106090116_31f6acf06ef879037fec8274b85153eab4468566abf71616490679bf8468b85d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260106090116_31f6acf06ef879037fec8274b85153eab4468566abf71616490679bf8468b85d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1596" height="1074" loading="lazy" alt="Panauti murals"> </figure>  In his foreword, French researcher Gérard Toffin writes about some of the earliest wall paintings from the Malla period in Kathmandu, including a 17th century mural depicting the procession of Rato Machhindranath which has since been restored.&nbsp; Several other pieces still exist but in a pitiful state, defaced by scratches. ‘They were painted on a plaster coating made of soil, husks, or limestone, which were applied to the bricks making up the walls,’ Toffin notes.&nbsp; The book delves into the cult of Asta Matrika among Newa of all castes and classes, the first of which is Bramhayani. These all-pervading deities are linked to Shaktism which focuses on the importance of the female principle and together, combine the forces of life, sex and fertility with that of death and eros. The deities are painted on the wall, carved on the stone or moulded into metallic statues.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260106090120_836efd2b0a569d8ec0fb2c6651a29b8f2dd8f8f75b72e27bb86b0bfc0ad8461f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260106090120_836efd2b0a569d8ec0fb2c6651a29b8f2dd8f8f75b72e27bb86b0bfc0ad8461f" data-rendition-name="original" width="1074" height="1434" loading="lazy" alt="Panauti murals"> </figure>  Riddhi Baba Pradhan, former director general of the Department of Archaeology who oversaw the restoration of Panauti 30 years ago, writes that a colourful wall painting depicting Buddha's past life at the Chabahil Chaitya built or restored during the reign of Lichhavi king Vrisdev in the 3rd century might be the earliest mural in Nepal. As for Panauti, a fragment from a 400-year-old scroll which illustrates a scene of Triveni Ghat with Dalinchok Hill in the background is likely the oldest. But that relic is currently at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in the United States.&nbsp; Pradhan recalls first encountering wall paintings inside Bramhayani temple which were deteriorated by smoke, leaky roof, dust, vermilion, sprinkles of animal blood and lack of maintenance. The team led by chemist Bhimvar Singh Thapa treated the wall paintings and some of the details were recovered including the paintings of Astamatrika and Asta Bhairav on the east, west and southern walls.&nbsp; PAINTINGS ARE NOT VISIBLE The murals were painted during the reign of the last Malla King of Bhaktapur Ranjit Malla and Queen Viswalaxmi Devi 300 years ago. But 40 years after the restoration, Pradhan notes that the murals are again in poor condition: ‘The paintings are not visible, the plaster is severely damaged and the surface has peeled off … electrical wires hang haphazardly inside the temple.’ The second lot of murals at Ghat Sattal are thought to have been commissioned during the late Malla period or the beginning of the Shah dynasty. Exterior walls depict incarnations of Lord Vishnu as well as Sesh Narayan, Ganesh, a scene of Samundra Manthan, of angels Maya, Moha, Ganga. Their attributes, dresses, ornaments, facial expressions, body postures are all skilfully represented but in a deteriorated condition.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260106090116_88d06703ae23a271905d81f35056d41df92cbbc4b9966fac3f34821659e585a8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20260106090116_88d06703ae23a271905d81f35056d41df92cbbc4b9966fac3f34821659e585a8" data-rendition-name="original" width="588" height="862" loading="lazy" alt="Panauti murals "> </figure>  The wall paintings of Bramhayani Dyochhen are 90% degraded even though they were restored and repaired 40 years ago by the Panauti Integrated Project. Compared to other artefacts, wall paintings are more delicate to external factors, and if not preserved an important part of Nepal’s heritage will be lost.&nbsp; Furthermore, most of the wall paintings in Nepal are temperas, and not frescos. Tempera is painted with water-soluble mineral or vegetable pigments fixed with glue on the cow dung clay plaster on the brick walls. While Nepal’s focus has been on the repatriation of stolen artefacts from abroad, religious and cultural objects within the country like the Panauti murals need urgent attention.&nbsp; This slim publication by Panauti Municipality is an important call to begin the work before it is too late.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260101120124_d0efa1e57b2710a206beb37c7e934ac34e694afc278985934eac2fc52124a92c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20260101120124_d0efa1e57b2710a206beb37c7e934ac34e694afc278985934eac2fc52124a92c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Wall Paintings of Panauti"> </figure>

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