https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHEfw0E8LdgIn a time when everything from medicine to marriage has shifted into a digital medium, there is something almost spiritual about a vinyl record: the weight of the thing, the way it sits in both hands, the ample real estate on the cardboard cover for actual artwork, lyrics, and the occasional essay.The music sounds crisp and crackled, so warm and wholesome that any imperfections or skips only add to the authenticity of the experience. The thing about old records is that they actually smell good: that sweet, lost, analogue smell of dust and time and all of the hands that have held it before.Vinyl pushes one into hyperbole, and modern collectors of old records tend to be privileged enough to entertain deliberate and impractical passions, to be hopeless connoisseurs of the senses – which, in this age of digital hyper-convenience, can be a beautiful thing.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111120/636cd0d99c7e80680e08f87cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="800"/>This is a story about three fellow dreamers, three dedicated friends who have never actually all met in person, three successful entrepreneurs and professionals who, inexplicably, decided to start a vinyl record company targeting a country where you still cannot buy a record player.In researching this article, I struggled to understand whose idea it was to start a record label in the first place. So I will start with Sushil Koirala, a public health expert who advises international policymakers on pandemics from a small room stacked floor to ceiling with vintage stereo equipment in Bangkok.When not fighting HIV/AIDS across Asia, Sushil was spending his late-night hours on the internet, searching for antique Nepali records. During an ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of a rare Japanese pressing of a Narayan Gopal record, he met Neeraj Gorkhaly.Neeraj, in keeping with our story, is a public policy expert who advises the US Government on physics and astronomy. Based in Washington DC, he describes his 15 years with the National Academies of Sciences as a means to an end. And that end is collecting records and philanthropy. He received the aforementioned Narayan Gopal record as a wedding present, and said he will “carry it with me to my grave”.Kiran Byanjankar rounds out the trio. Kiran’s introduction to vinyl was listening to his ठुलो दाइ play Pink Floyd and Deep Purple on an ancient wind-up gramophone at their home in the Chyasal neighbourhood of Patan. He first met Neeraj at a cassette shop in New Road where Neeraj worked, dubbing bootleg mixtapes and manning the counter.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/on-a-high-note/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tibetan music in Nepal’s sacred valley</a>, Sewa Bhattarai<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111120/636cd0dc9c7e80680e08f87djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1080"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>By this point, Kiran had found punk and heavy metal, and was in pursuit of Megadeth. After an unsuccessful attempt to fail his interview for a study visa to America, Kiran reluctantly ended up in Chicago. He completed his computer engineering degree and promptly started up a series of successful Nepali restaurants. As his businesses grew, Kiran started collecting vinyl records and taking his employees out to heavy metal concerts as an annual bonus.And this is how Wild Yak Records started: three friends, spread across the globe, spend countless hours chatting about records on the internet and decide to start a strictly-vinyl Nepali record label. There was never a question about where to begin.<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/making-the-sound-of-music-in-patan,3976" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Saving the sound of music</a>, Sebastian Wellingbat“There is no other singer who is as beloved in Nepal as Narayan Gopal,” says Sushil. Narayan Gopal – the स्वर सम्राट himself – in many ways helped invent Nepali popular music. His voice, smooth as scotch, silky as the Queen’s sari, was on heavy rotation across Nepal and Darjeeling for nearly four decades, and came to define the fundamentals of Nepali film soundtracks and pop.There are few Nepalis in popular culture, and even fewer outside of the monarchy or the Maoists, that achieve a level of fame and ubiquity that allows them to shed their last name.Narayan Gopal Gurucharya, born to a Newa family in the very heart of old Kathmandu, was one. His art was also inseparable from his legend, which invited plentiful speculation and rumour: the prodigious drinking and smoking, the whispered affections for (and from) Queen Aishwarya, partnerships with poets and writers that all somehow crumbled – and cumulating in an early death in 1990 from his excesses at 51.It was as if this life could not keep him around, and his songs about love and loss were real, lived experiences. He tapped into the sublime melancholy of the soul -- the kind of thing that led his contemporaries in the American South to coin the blues.In 1961, under the tutelage of King Mahendra, His Majesty’s Government founded Ratna Recording Sansthan, which paired with Radio Nepal to press records of Nepali national music. Most of the recording was done in Nepal or India on old reel-to-reel tapes, then shipped off to Calcutta or Japan for pressing onto vinyl. (There are rumours of records made in the former Soviet Union but these remain as elusive as the yeti.)These records all made their way back to Nepal and were played on the radio or listened to on the scratchy gramophones that now gather dust in the attics, or hold cocktail glasses in the well-appointed living rooms of Kathmandu’s gentry. This lasted for about two decades, until it was thoroughly and permanently made irrelevant with the introduction of affordable cassette tapes in the mid-1980s.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111120/636cd0e09c7e80680e08f87ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="599" height="602"><figure><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Narayan Gopal would have been 81 this year. Nobody really knows how many recordings of his songs actually exist. His legend, now amplified on the internet, claims something in the neighbourhood of 500, but all estimates point to something closer to 130-150 recordings.As Ratna Recording shut down, the original tapes were moved to Nepal Television. After that, it’s murky. But thankfully, Music Nepal has carefully saved copies of the analogue recordings of many of the original recordings from that era.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111120/636cd0e49c7e80680e08f880jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="644" height="859">In 2018, Sushil tracked down the original recordings at Music Nepal and had them copied directly onto vintage reel-to-reel tapes, imported from France. It was clear to everyone at Wild Yak that this would be a completely analogue process from start to finish. The master copies were then sent to Ohio where they were painstakingly remastered.“We made every attempt to keep the old sound intact,” recalls Sushil. “In some cases, this even meant sacrificing cleanness or quality, but we wanted the records to sound like they originally did.” Before long, 300 copies of Swor Samrat Narayan Gopal – Golden Collection were pressed into metallic gold vinyl records, and began their slow journey to eager collectors across the Planet.<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18795#.X-_siy8w3BJ">Songs of our past</a>, Amar Gurung<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111120/636cd0e79c7e80680e08f881jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1100" height="733"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Was the effort worth it? It seems so. Kiran told me: “The record left me spellbound.” Sushil adds: “When I first listened to it I could make out Narayan Gopal’s Newa accent.”Kashish Das Shrestha, a former radio DJ and editor of Wave magazine, spent a few of his own more productive years searching fruitlessly for Narayan Gopal’s original recordings. He was thrilled to receive his copy of the new record: “It’s phenomenal. Something I’ve wanted for over a decade.”Of the 300 records, only 50 remain available for purchase. With these strong, albeit modest, sales of the Narayan Gopal collection, I couldn’t help but ask again: Was all this effort worth it? “This was never started to be a profitable business,” Neeraj replied. “We roll all of our income into paying for the next project.”With this in mind, Wild Yak has nearly completed its next album. With the hope of tapping into a younger generation of enthusiasts, a Hanuman-esque bright orange pressing of Bipul Chhetri’s Sketches of Darjeeling will be ready for distribution in January.“Bipul is like the new Narayan Gopal. Everyone loves him,” says Kiran.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/eastern-melodies-in-kathmandu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Eastern melodies in Kathmandu</a>, Sewa Bhattarai<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111120/636cd0ea9c7e80680e08f882jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1375" height="916">After this, the label has plans for compilations of Kumar Basnet, Aruna Lama, and a selection of popular Nepali rock and roll from the ’70s and 80s – bringing back bands like The Influence, Cross Roads, and 1974 AD.But first, they need to locate the original tapes.When I first received my own copy of Swar Samrat in September, I had just returned to the United States. Awash in the Covid sterility of America, I was quickly nostalgic for Kathmandu. As I pulled the record out of the dust jacket, I was struck by the gold colour, shining like a storefront on New Road during the week before Dasain.I put the record carefully on the turntable and set the needle. Out of my speakers crept a flute and loping bass, lightly dusted with reverb. A few seconds in, The Emperor’s voice emerged crisp and rich, sweet as जेरी and चिया, I was transported.मेरो गीत भन्ने अधिकार छैन,गीत को पो म हुंमेरो गीत हैन।I have no right to call this my song,The song doesn’t belong to me, I belong to the song.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/ex-refugee-takes-refuge-in-music/">Ex-refugee takes refuge in music</a>, Gopal GartoulaBen Ayers is a humanitarian, documentary filmmaker, and National Geographic Explorer based in Kathmandu.

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The sweet smell of music

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 Nicolás Maduro Moros 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

At Budhanilkantha School Ujwal Thapa was a few years my senior. He was a quiet person who kept to himself; I didn’t know him very well despite being related to him because of that introversion and natural shyness. What we did have in common, coming of age in the 1990s, is our generation, GenX, which became weary, inured for the most part, to Nepal’s famously unstable politics.&nbsp; Counting the events of this past September, GenX has, astonishingly, lived through three people’s revolutions, one armed conflict, a flawed but hard won constitution, and a major earthquake. Ujwal Thapa, one of Nepal’s most cherished Gen Xers, despite his previous, youthful reticence, did not long remain a complaisant bystander against the backdrop of these extreme upheavals.&nbsp; By the mid 2000s he had become deeply political, but without the equivocation that so often accompanies politics. Thanks to his lived experience, he came to believe that the youth of Nepal are the key to our future. He believed in discerning wisdom (bibeksheelta), innovation, and nurture. He inspired entire generations, young and old, including GenZ, before his untimely death due to Covid in 2021. He was only 44.&nbsp; By the time of his passing he had started a tech company, and employed and mentored scores of youth. It is important to note that only after he had made a significant contribution to civil society did he turn towards politics, founding and then stepping back from the Bibeksheel Nepali party, which has now, after several complicated mergers and splits, been integrated into the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP). When the Ujwal Thapa Foundation set out to make a documentary on his life three years ago, no one could have known that it would premiere at such a crucial point in Nepal’s social and political history.&nbsp; Everything that Ujwal Thapa believed in still holds true. I think he would have been proud to see the youth of our country, GenZ, stand up for themselves, peacefully. He would have been grieved at the state condoned bloodshed, and, believing in non-violent protest himself, been deeply shocked by the savage revolution that followed.&nbsp; Most of all, I wonder how he would have reacted to the publishing of the blatantly elitist RSP proportional representation list - the party that many had pinned their hopes on, and that Bibeksheel Nepali has ultimately been absorbed into. That party now seems like it may be a chip off the rotten old block, ruled by men endorsing rampant nepotism, and outnumbered by people without scruples.&nbsp; Many of the names on the list and the rankings, in particular, disrespect the very spirit of a provision that was created for those competent individuals who would not otherwise be able to contest elections, due to lack of monetary and social capital, but whose marginalised voices are vital for inclusive policy making. There is still time for real inclusion, to embrace a more bibeksheel path, before the March elections.&nbsp; Ujwal Thapa’s own, firm, ethical stances are clear in the The Man Who Shook Our Minds, translated loosely from the Nepali title Dimaag Ghhochne Manchhe. While long, at almost two hours, it is filled with thought-provoking and sage counsel. The film also offers very real insight into how Ujwal Thapa evolved into the icon he is today.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026011111018_eb596eb063dcaf0f67840bfa4ffa39eb27df2bf9ec1a3f9a1f531824c1b7a569.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2026011111018_eb596eb063dcaf0f67840bfa4ffa39eb27df2bf9ec1a3f9a1f531824c1b7a569" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="670" loading="lazy" alt="Ujwal Thapa"> <figcaption>Stills from the documentary.</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026011111018_65d9625d3a4865ca228425b7ce7b7b186ae5009313bbfab0ee65eada276aebd6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2026011111018_65d9625d3a4865ca228425b7ce7b7b186ae5009313bbfab0ee65eada276aebd6" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="670" loading="lazy" alt="Ujwal Thapa"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026011111018_2ff455c55722d153cafbd2d650e19584e38d7c098b109271bd106a55201f4fa0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2026011111018_2ff455c55722d153cafbd2d650e19584e38d7c098b109271bd106a55201f4fa0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="670" loading="lazy" alt="Ujwal Thapa"> </figure>  It isn’t easy making a documentary after the passing of the primary subject. While there are many talking heads, the people featured, friends, family, fellow activists and senior politicians are all eloquent in their descriptions of Ujwal Thapa and his transformation from an engaged, civic minded entrepreneur into a committed political leader who among many other commendable things, believed in putting women first, and understood the crucial necessity for a welfare state that would serve its people. The main man is not deified, he is humanised.&nbsp; The feature is punctuated, and leavened, with moments of real humour as his infamous bluntness and occasional domestic haplessness are gently exposed. Another strength of the film is the profound love story between Ujwal Thapa and his brave, brilliant, incredibly resilient wife, Erica Adhikary, the heroine to a real life hero, and a major force behind the making of this film, alongside many of his stalwart wellwishers and friends, old and new.&nbsp; Sushila Karki, the Prime Minister, was present at the premiere of the film with members of her Cabinet. Candid and sincere in her opening remarks, she said she had wanted to attend the moment she heard about the film. She had known Ujwal Thapa, and she had mourned his loss, praying for him during his illness. She wished that leaders like him were here today to show us the way forward in a time of need. The film opened in theatres on the 9th of January, and is an essential viewing experience for anyone who cares about Nepal’s future and wants some insight into how they might make a difference.&nbsp; Ujwal Thapa was not perfect, but he was remarkable. He realised that being a civic minded citizen just isn’t enough. To make a real difference, one also needs to be principled, insightful, entrepreneurial, creative, self motivated, able to speak truth to power, uncorruptible, practical, well prepared, and, perhaps, most importantly, able to step back from holding power even after attaining it.&nbsp; The saying by Plato that goes “He who does not desire power is fit to hold it” was surely meant for people like Ujwal Thapa. One can only hope that in the near future more people embodying this description will, however reluctantly, come forward to lead Nepal. Ujwal Thapa worked hard to enable this, they must be out there. <div class="embed-block"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/veO1yVM4pS4?si=f0Lcbs1wasyqfnK1" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> The Man Who Shook Our Minds is being screened at QFX cinemas across town. Sophia L Pandé is on the Ujwal Thapa Foundation Advisory Board. She is a writer, art-historian and filmmaker, advising on the economic and social potential of the Cultural and Creative Industries. She is Director of Development at the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust, and Founding Director of The Kalā Salon, a non-profit space for the arts.

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The Man Who Shook Our Minds