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Go on a walking tour In Kathmandu
Even if you are from Kathmandu—better if you are not—you should still consider this free walking tour to learn more about the tangible and intangible history that have influenced the old city in the past and continues to shape it today. SherpaShah Heritage Fund facilitates this tour every Wednesday from 2:30 pm to 4pm. The event is offered in Nepali language. If you contribute some money, it will be collected in the “SherpaShah Heritage Fund” to facilitate future tours. The tours explore rituals, traditions, cultures and urban designs of Kathmandu.
If you want to join, call 9818664566.
Celebrate rice planting In Lalitpur
Rice is the staple food for many Nepalis. Rice planting festival, also known as “Ropaai festival”, marks the first planting of rice, celebrated on Ashar 15 ( June 29 this year) every year. On this day you can play in the mud, get wet, mingle with locals and plant rice. Socialtours is arranging one such event in Bungamati, Lalitpur. The price of Rs 2500 includes pick and drop, traditional Newari snacks and rice beer!
Call 9801123401.
Honey hunt In Lamjung
Indigenous people of Nepal have practiced honey hunting for thousands of years. And now you can also do it in Lamjung with local honey hunting experts from Global Holidays Adventure. You choose between a four-day or a 12-day honey hunting trip. Honey hunting primarily involves extracting honey from massive beehives nestled in cliffs 200 meters to 500 meters in height with the help of traditionally weaved rope. The honey hunting locations are Chamja, Bhujung, Nai Chi, Passion, Jaya Gaun, Ghale Gaun, Ludhi, Seurung and Dare of Lamjung district.
Call +977-01-4420009 or send an email to [email protected].
Quick questions with ASM
Q. Who do you respect the most?
A. Everybody who makes an effort.
Q. Could you share any of your secret tricks?
A. Drink in moderation. Weed is good for you. Learn to love everybody. Make sure your music is honest.
Q. What advice would you give to other aspiring musicians?
A. Practice.
Q. What is one mistake you see a lot of up-and-coming musicians making?
A. Everybody makes the same mistake. It’s the same mistake. Everyone makes it.
Q. What is something that bugs you about the music scene?
A. People frequently questioning the music scene.
Q. What is one super power you want?
A. Patience.
Q. What is one track that never gets old for you no matter how many times you hear it?
A. “Lag Jaa Gale” by Lata Mangeshkar.
Q. What is one track that got popular that you can't stand?
A. “Macarena”. I used to love it as a kid but now I can’t stand it.
Q. If you could have coffee with a celebrity, who would it be and why?
A. Bob Marley because he would bring the best weed.
Q. Your favorite getaway?
A. My room.
Child marriage rampant in Jumla
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Disclosing age mandatory in wedding invitation cards RAJAN GAULE | Sindhuli
Despite much effort to curb child marriage in Sindhuli, a district in the central hills, progress has been limited at best. So the local government has now come up with a new idea: It is now compulsory to disclose the ages of the bride and the groom in their wedding invitation cards.
Chairperson of the Marin rural municipality Paniraj Bamjan says, “To stop this illegal activity, it is now compulsory to show in the wedding cards that the groom and the bride are both over the age of 20.”
The local government hopes that people would not lie about their age in the invitation cards. More than two dozen child marriages that were about to take place in the district under parental pressure have been stopped in the past six months.
Chairperson of the Hariharpurgadi rural municipality Karsang Lama says that the aim is to end child marriage in the rural municipality within the next two years.
Golanjor rural municipality has formed a child marriage control committee. Kamalamai municipality has assigned one psychological counselor for seven of its wards in an attempt to stop child marriage (and plans to do the same for the remaining seven wards soon.) Even religious leaders in the district have expressed commitment to help end child marriage. |
Child marriage remains rampant in the north- western district of Jumla despite the presence of dozens of organizations working to end the social scourge. According to the 2011 census, of the 118,000 people in Jumla, 55,442 are children. A whopping 69 percent of the marriages in the district are child marriages. Among the districts in Karnali Province, this percentage is the highest in Rukum (79 percent), followed by Dailekh (70 percent), Salyan (69 percent), Surkhet (68 percent), Jajarkot (65 percent), Kalikot (59 percent), Mugu (57 percent), Humla (52 percent) and Dolpa (49 percent). The provincial office of the National Human Rights Commission revealed these data at a recent program in Jumla. Due to widespread child marriage, 33 percent of girls in Jumla get pregnant before they turn 19. This has not just affected the health and education of these girls but has also threatened their lives.
Local representatives claim their work has been made difficult due to the increasing trend of child marriages in Jumla. “Girls under 20 get married, have kids and want birth certificates for their child,” says Ward Chair Min Bahadur Dangi.
“If we don’t issue a birth certificate, the child would be deprived of government services all their life. But many of the mothers do not have a citizenship card.” District chief of the National Human Rights Commission Ramesh Kumar Thapa says that polygamy and divorce rates have also gone up due to the increasing frequency of child marriages.
Even though child marriages are widespread in the district, complaints are not lodged, says Deputy Superintendent of Police Sita Ram Rijal. Chief District Officer Durga Banjade accuses the local representatives of not being serious about ending child marriages. The provincial government, on the other hand, says it has introduced various programs and policies to end child marriage
Who do our MPs serve?
Two recent instances illustrate a signature shortcoming of Nepal’s post-1990 democratic dispensation. In his budget speech for 2019/20, Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada increased the yearly discretionary spending cap of federal MPs in their respective constituencies from Rs 40 million to Rs 60 million. The Constituency Development Fund has been arbitrarily increased, at the insistence of MPs from across the political spectrum, even though this fund has historically been grossly misspent. People’s chosen representatives conveniently ignored the pressure this year from the media and the common folks not to do so.
Only a handful of opposition MPs criticized the increase in MPs’ spending capacities. True, Nepali Congress leaders were unanimous in their public objection to the “populist” and “wasteful” budget. Yet most of them were curiously absent from one place from where they could get the government to rethink its budgetary priorities. The ongoing discussions in the federal parliament over the recently presented budget has turned into a farce, as speakers address the assembly without even a tenth of its 275 members in attendance. Most senior leaders of the ruling and opposition parties are missing, as are most ministers.
Sadly, this kind of shameless dereliction of duty and open loot of state coffers by people’s chosen representatives have been a constant over the past three decades. The political system changed, as did the composition of the parliament, which is now a lot more inclusive than it was even a decade ago. And yet the self-serving nature of our MPs remains the same. Upon seeing the empty chairs in the parliament on such important occasions, people are bound to ask: Why will the parliamentarians turn up after they have already gotten all the money they want? Such cynicism of the parliamentary process is troubling. It reflects a deep mistrust of the political class, which only seems interested in enriching itself even if their country is going to the dogs.
A more charitable interpretation would be that our lawmakers are humans and it must be mighty difficult for them to refuse such large sums of money that come with few strings attached. Were we in their place, the vast majority of us would probably do the same. But the point is, we are not in politics, supposedly the highest public service. After taking the oath to selflessly serve the country and the people, this attempt of our MPs to suck their poor state dry is morally reprehensible. In the long run, it is also detrimental to their political career.
It’s (not) all in the name
If you think you’ve figured out the content of the movie “Kumva Karan” by its name or its trailer, you might want to leave your assumptions at home, for you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Directed by Dipak Oli, Kumva Karan is not an all-out comedy. It sure is based in the comedy genre but the thrilling, suspenseful twists and the shocking ending will keep you entertained throughout, despite all its glitches and flaws. It’s a Nepali movie—for Satya Harishchandra’s sake! We can sure be a little forgiving. The name Kumva Karan does not allude to the mythical sleepyhead demon from Ramayana, unlike what we’d assume. Instead, the name is a tell-tale of the movie’s plot, cleverly revealed in the second half. The whole film is done smartly, actually. Sans expensively shot item numbers and massive production cost, Kumva Karan relies on its plot, screenplay and star cast to keep the audience hooked to their seats for the 1.47-hour runtime.
The film centers around three Karans—Karandeep Ghimire (Bhola Raj Sapkota), Karan Prasad Upadhyaya (Gaurav Pahari), and Karan Bahadur Chhetri (Abhay Baral)—respectively the head master, Nepali teacher and a peon of a community school in Pyuthan. Their otherwise passive nature is given a masculine jolt by the entry of Sapana madam (Nisha Adhikari), the English teacher who they all fall for heads over heels.
They compete for her attention, healthily and unhealthily, and the first half is all about their antics to win her affection. Then, what follows changes the narrative entirely. (As we don’t know any other reviewer who’s spilled all the beans on a review and lived to work another day, we’ll leave it at that.)
Coming to the performances, the troika of Karans fit right into their characters and are pleasant to watch. Well, it’s always good to see a Nepali comedy where the actors don’t scream their lungs out to make you laugh. Comedy can be subtle, like it is in Kumva Karan. Bhola Raj, who shot to fame with his significant appearance in the Bollywood hit ‘Barfi’ (2012), puts in a par performance as a wannabe strict headmaster, who actually ends up looking comical and cute. Gaurav as the shy, spectacled Nepali teacher also justifies his character.
Only if the dialogues were better! Forgiving as much as we want to be, we do need to address the elephant in the room
The one person whose name has cruelly been left out from the trailer and promotions wins the man-of-the-match though. While Bhola Raj and Gaurav manage to score what they’re expected to, Abhay Baral as the obnoxious yet lovable peon is like the tail-ender who scores a blazing 17-ball half century to take his team home. His comic timings are impeccable and he manages to grab all the attention onscreen with both his physical performance and dialogue delivery.
If only the dialogues were better! Forgiving as much as we want to be, we do need to address the elephant in the room. The dialogues undercut the possibility of this being a brilliant movie. All the emotions in the film are basically visible, thanks to the actors, and had the dialogues given to them been any better, the characters would certainly appear stronger. Imagine a Gabbar Singh without Salim-Javed’s prolific prose-work. Jason Kunwar’s background score manages to save some grace during the pivotal scenes though and the aural needs of emoting are somewhat fulfilled.
Who should watch it?
If you can excuse some typical glitches of our Kollywood productions, you might actually like the film. It’s definitely worth the time and movie tickets. A little humor and a rather simplistic thriller is also good when the weather is bad and you have nothing else to do.
Movie: Kumva Karan
Genre: Comedy/Thriller
Cast: Nisha Adhikari, Pramod Agrahari, Gaurav Pahari, Bholaraj Sapkota, Abhay Baral, Kuldip Adhikari
Direction: Dipak Oli
Rating: 2.5/5
Dark and delicious
Every once in a while you come across a book that just blows your mind away. ‘Revenge’, a collection of 11 short stories, by Yoko Ogawa is one such volume. Ogawa has you trapped in her web of dark tales and you wish to relive the experience over and over again. You enter Ogawa’s dark and delicious world with a woman going into a local bakery to buy strawberry shortcake for her son. In the course of the conversation, she tells another woman she has only just met at the otherwise empty bakery that “today is his birthday.” When asked how old he is, the woman replies, “Six. He’ll always be six. He’s dead,” before going on to explain the bizarre events following his death.
All the stories in this collection begin innocuously enough. Two girls work in the laundry at a hospital washing lab coats. A man on the way to his stepmother’s funeral is waylaid when his train gets stuck in the snow. Each premise is ordinary but as the stories progress they take horrifying turns. They are all about death, abruptly ending relationships, and, of course, about revenge. Individually, the stories don’t add up to much. If you choose a random story and read that, you are likely to be disappointed. But it’s a powerful, albeit at times jarring, anthology when you read the stories consecutively from beginning to end. There are some stories like “Old Mrs. J” and “Lab Coats” that can be read as self-contained pieces but most stories have a link to the next in the anthology.
The charm of the stories, however, lies in how unpredictable they are. It’s spooky and fun at the same time. You get goose bumps when you suddenly realize what has just happened. And the blows are always sucker punch—you never see them coming. Translator Stephen Snyder compared Ogawa’s work to Murakami’s, going as far as to call her “the next Haruki Murakami” and some reviewers have even cited the influence of Edgar Allan Poe and Jorge Luis Borges. Deftly constructed and skillfully written, Ogawa’s stories will leave you feeling a bit unsettled but also wanting to read everything else she has ever written.
Book: Revenge
Genre: Fiction
Author: Yoko Ogawa
Published: January 29, 2013
Publisher: Picador
Language: Translated in English by Stephen Snyder
Pages: 176, Paperback
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About the author
Yoko Ogawa has published over 20 books, short story collections, novels, and works of non-fiction. She has won five prestigious literary awards in Japan. In 2008, she was awarded the Shirley Jackson Award for “The Diving Pool”. Four of her books have been translated into English. |
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The legend of Boudha
After ping-ponging left and right across the Boudha street for years, the iconic family-run Mechung is back at its original spot (opposite the Boudhanath Stupa Gate) but in a new building. The 40-year-old “momo-chowmein” joint which never saw empty tables now has fancier interiors yet retains the taste that made it famous not only in Boudha but all over Kathmandu. Momo is a must at Mechung (veg, chicken, buff ) followed closely by chowmein, thukpa and shahphaley— all Tibetan delicacies which taste best in the nonvegetarian options. Then you also have an exotic Chinese menu which surpasses any run-of-the-mill multi-cuisine restaurant’s Chinese dishes, both in terms of taste and authenticity.
PS: As a favor to us, please do try the “tongue salad” on the Chinese menu which we didn’t dare order (too full), and get back to us on how you liked it.
THE MENU
Chef’s Special:
- Thentuk
- Rhuchotse
- Chin Chai Roose
Opening hours: 10:30 am to 8:30 pm
Location: Boudhanath Sadak
Cards: Not Accepted
Meal for 2: Rs 650
Reservations: 01-4477759
Biryani and Beer at Radisson Kathmandu
It’s an all-you-can-eat affair at Radisson Hotel Kathmandu’s Biryani and Beer promotions this week. The beautiful Terrace Garden restaurant at Radisson offers you a picturesque view of Kathmandu and spreads out an extravagant buffet of the most delicious biryanis cooked in Hyderabadi, Lucknowi, Malabari and Kolkata style. The dish of royalties, prepared by Radisson’s Executive Chef Utpal Kumar Mondal, is served in non-vegetarian as well as vegetarian options and comes accompanied with salan, raita and desserts.
The biryani and beer promotions is a part of a series of monthly food promotional events, the hotel informs, as it gears up for a bigger food festival in the future. At Rs 1,799 plus taxes per person for the biryani buffet and two bottles of beer, the promotion runs through till May 31.
