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Kathmandu: Biratnagar-based camp office of the Embassy of India has been closed on Monday. The office was opened in 2008 following the devastating Koshi floods. The purpose of the camp office has been served, said a spokesperson at the Embassy of India, Kathmandu. The embassy spokesperson further said that they had already decided to wind up the camp office and relocate the personnel. This decision was conveyed by Prime Minister Modi to his Nepali counterpart during his visit to Nepal last week. RSS

Fiction

THE FORTYRULES OF LOVE

Elif Shafak

Publisher: Penguin Books; Re­print edition (April 26, 2011)

Language: English

Pages: 368, paperback

“Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven’t loved enough.”“The real challenge is to love the good and the bad together, not because you need to take the rough with the smooth but because you need to go beyond such descriptions and accept love in its entirety.”

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Elif Shafak’s characters stay in your subconscious mind long after you have turned the final page of her book. They are hard to forget. That’s how well she develops her characters and brings them to life. You only wish the same could be said of her storytelling. You would expect it from an author who claims, time and again, that her homeland is none other than storyland.

Inspired by Rumi’s messages on love, ‘The Forty Rules of Love’, like most of Shafak’s works, man­ages to confuse you no end. This often-poetic novel within a novel story unfolds in two parallel nar­ratives. The first one takes place in the 21st century and is about an unhappily married Jewish housewife named Ella living in Northampton, Massachusetts. Ella works for a lit­erary agency and is given the task of writing a report on a book titled ‘Sweet Blasphemy’ by Aziz Zahara. The sweet blasphemy is the second narrative of this novel that is set in the 13th century. It’s about Rumi and the infamous wandering dervish known as Shams of Tabriz.

The story of Ella finding love with a bohemian Sufi mystic while in the process of evaluating his book that is set in a time period we are famil­iar with is a lot less believable than the one where Rumi and Shams of Tabriz find comfort in each other’s company. And it’s the story that takes place in an era that you can’t really relate to that the readers find themselves increasing drawn to as the narrative progresses.

There is also an overdose of cli­chés that distract from the storytell­ing. Phrases like ‘shivers go down the spine’, ‘bowled over’, ‘far off the beaten track’, and, ‘make a moun­tain out of a molehill’, make the narrative somewhat annoying and lame. Shafak, who has previously written both in English and Turkish, seems to have made a mistake by writing the novel first in English, having it translated into Turkish, and then rewriting it in English. The experiment, albeit interesting, doesn’t quite work.

Despite having been quite harshly critical of her work, we would still like to recommend Shafak’s The Forty Rules of Love to our readers. If not for Shafak, then you might want to read it for Rumi or as an introduction to Sufi thoughts and ideologies. Also, the lessons Shafak shares through Rumi’s story encour­age you to make some changes in your life and fill it with love and even if that were the only reason to read this book, it’s reason enough.

Nepal Tourism Board, Nepal National Ethnographic Museum and friends of Jan Salter, who passed away last month, hosted the launch of the webpage, Faces of Nepal, at the Nepal Tourism Board, Brikutimandap on May 15.

The entire collection of Salt­er’s painting and drawings, which capture the faces of Nepal’s diverse ethnic groups, has now been made available at www.jansalter.org. Minis­ter of Culture and Tourism, Rabindra Adhikari, and Dep­uty Chief of Mission of the British Embassy Nepal, Ali­son McEwen, attended the function.

Jan Salter MBE (1936-2018), a British artist, is widely known for her portraits of the people of Nepal, as well as for her lead­ership in several social causes, including the anti-trafficking movement and animal welfare. She was also the founder of Kathmandu Animal Treatment Center (KAT).

The webpage contains information on paintings and drawings for sale. The amount thus earned will be donated to KAT, as per the wish of the late artist.

THE MENU

Chef’s Special:

Grilled Aubergine Sandwich

Red Velvet Cupid

Crinkle Cut Fries

Hurricane Fries

Dark Intense

Opening hours: 11 am to 10 pm

Cards Accepted

Meal for 2: Rs 1,200

Summer’s here and there’s nothing better to beat the heat than a tasty ice-cream treat. And when you have the option of crafting your own ice-cream sundae order, to your unique preferences, you’re in sweet-tooth heaven. At Icekraft-Nepal, you can do just that with your sugary delights.

Located at Kamaladi (Between Royal Singi Hotel and Bank of Kathmandu), Icekraft is a popular joint for desserts along with its exotic options for fries, waffles, pancakes, salads and sandwiches. Tasty offerings with the options of the best of coffee drinks and ‘thick shakes’ as well as ‘freaks shakes’ is what Icekraft offers. With the summer reaching its peak and ice-cream lovers thronging ice-cream bars, Icekraft might need to expand to a bigger property soon though.

Simrik Air helicopters on May 16 completed their search and rescue mission for the Bulgarian national Boyan Petrov, who had gone missing in an area of the Tibetan Autonomous Region in China since April 29.

Petrov is a veteran climber who has summited all 10 peaks over 8,000m. As the operation could be undertaken only by Nepali helicop­ters, with Chinese permits, Simrik had deployed its helicopters on an immediate basis on a special request of the Embassy of the Republic of Bulgaria in New Delhi.

After the first unsuccessful mis­sion on May 11-12 to spot Petrov, involving two helicopters, on May 16 one of Simrik Air's helicopters flew over the concerned regions for the second time, again to no avail. The search flight over Shishapangma, the Tibetan mountain Petrov was climb­ing, lasted for 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Further, Sherpas reached 10 meters closer to the summit. They found some of Petrov’s belongings, such as insulin, medical kit with some energy gels and his t-shirt at camp 3, but there was no sign of the climber. APEX BUREAU

VG Automobiles, autho­rized importer and distributor of Suzuki Motorcycle India for Nepal, and a subsidiary of one of the country’s leading busi­ness groups—Vishal Group—took the new Suzuki Intruder riders to Sukute this week. VG Suzuki invited Intruder riders from all over Nepal to the event.

The route wound its way from Teku, Thapathali, Maitighar, New Baneshwor, Surya Binayak, Jagati, Sanga, Banepa, Dhulikhel, Pachkhal, Dolalghat and all the way to River Bay Rafting & Resort, Sukute.

The event consisted of fun games and musical performances to entertain Intruder riders. The riders followed the same route back to Kathmandu.

Talking about the ride, Nabraj Koirala, Marketing Manager of VG Suzuki, said: “We are very happy to take the fearless and daring riders to Sukute. We believe that Intruder riders have always been attached with excitement and adventure, Intruder being the definition of a bike that domi­nates every terrain, be it tarmac, rugged, muddy or any other pre­carious routes.”

Turkish Airlines flies to 301 cities in 121 countries around the world. The Star Alliance Member started flying to Nepal in September 2013 and has been continuously ferrying people, to and fro, between Nepal and multiple global destinations. The airlines currently has five flights a week from Nepal, and is planning a daily flight starting this September.

Abdullah Tuncer KECECI, General Manager of Turkish Airlines Nepal office, talks to APEX about the presence of Turkish Airlines in Nepal, and about its future plans and possibilities.

As a representative of one of the biggest international carriers in the world, what do you make of the state of the Tribhuvan International Airport?

We are positive about the airport extending its opening hours from 18 to 21. And we hope it will be open for 24 hours soon. But at present, we would like the airport to open earlier.

Right now it opens at 6 am. Our flights are scheduled at 6:20 am, which creates many problems. We want the airport to open at around 4 am. That will also motivate other European carriers to come and will also decrease peak load. It will help everyone.

Also, there is too much traffic for a single-runway airport. There are upcoming airport projects all around Nepal and we are hopeful that they will increase the productivity in aviation sector. But as of now, air traffic in Kathmandu airport is a problem. It is not a good prac­tice to hold planes on air for 40-50 minutes. I hope the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal resolves this issue and help Nepal reach its vision of tourism development.

Turkish Airlines is known for promoting the countries it flies to. What is it doing to promote Nepal abroad?

We have a few plans to promote Nepal. We fly to global tourist des­tinations like London, Berlin, Stutt­gart, Helsinki, Moscow, Paris and Lisbon, to name a few, and our mis­sion has been to promote Nepal in all those destinations.

Nepalis are spending more on outbound travel than what the country is earning from tourism. As an international carrier, how do you evaluate the Nepali tour­ism market?

Nepal has a lot more capacity on tourism than what it is currently utilizing. You don’t have the sea but you have everything besides the sea, like mountains, rivers, cul­tural heritages, historic cities and natural beauty. Unfortunately, the country is being promoted in seasons like March/April and September/October.

What about people not interested in hiking to the mountains? Moun­tains were a strong theme for Nepal but then they became the weakest link at some point. We can’t afford to have only seasonal tourists coming here. So we have to promote Nepal for its people and places besides the mountains, and create an all-season tourist flow.

Also, the spending on outbound travel is not only because more peo­ple are travelling. It is also because of the labor flow.

How does Turkish Airlines con­nect with the people of Nepal? Why should Nepalis travelling abroad choose your airlines?

Most international flights started in Nepal to cater to the labor mar­ket here. But for us, from the day we started, we have been treating Nepal as one of the popular tourist destinations in the world. We even encourage other carriers to do that, and believe this well get a positive response from the people of Nepal.

We are trying to reach every peo­ple, not only who can travel. Our main target is to build a cultural bridge between Turkey and Nepal, and between Nepal and other coun­tries. For that reason we support other areas like sports, women empowerment, youth and children. If it was in our hands, we would support all those who want to do something for the country.

We want to make this earth­quake-affected Kathmandu city lively through our events. When the city is alive, people have more reason to come to Nepal. This in turn will empower Nepalis and create an intelligent movement of people. We’re also trying to build trade ties between Turkey and Nepal, which has increased significantly since we started operations.

The Turkish Airlines World Gold Tournament was held in Nepal this year. How was the response?

We did it for the first time in Nepal and got a warm response. Turkish Airlines has been hosting international golfing events in other countries over the past six years, mostly in golf destinations. This year we decided to increase the num­ber of destinations and included Nepal too.

We had a chance to host one leg of the tournament here in May. With this, Nepal is now in the golf net­work, which covers 64 countries around the world and more than 100 flight destinations. All in all, we are promoting Nepal as a golf desti­nation as well.

Besides that, we are planning to host other events in Nepal. Around our upcoming fifth anniversary in Nepal, we’re planning more events including a Turkish food festival.

Tiji is a fascinating annual three-day festival consisting of Tibetan rituals that celebrate the myth of a son who had to save the Mustang kingdom from destruction. The festival, which falls on May 22-24 this year, is indigenous to Lo-Manthang, Upper Mustang. "Tiji" the name is an abbreviation of the word "Tempa Chirim" which means "Prayer for World Peace". This festival commemorates the victory of Lord Bud­dha's incarnation Dorjee Sonnu over a demon called Man Tam Ru, a vicious creature feeding on human beings and causing storms and droughts. The Tiji festival dances are all organized by the Choedhe Monastery, which belongs to the Sakya sect of Buddhism.