Submit your Article

Home is a safe space. But not for everyone. It’s often a hostile ground for LGBTIQA+ individuals. Most are harassed and abused when they come out. When violence happens at home, where do you go? When your family doesn’t accept you, who do you turn to?

A little over a year ago, a 15-year-old trans girl died by suicide. According to Pinky Gurung, president of Blue Diamond Society (BDS), Nepal’s oldest queer rights organization, the girl was being harassed at home after disclosing her gender identity. Two years before her death, she had written a letter to BDS mentioning how her family was mistreating her.

“Most cases of violence aren’t reported as people don’t want to complain against their family members,” says Gurung. Sometimes, these individuals reach out to organizations like BDS or those from the community. But, Gurung adds, family counseling and mediation can do only so much in the absence of strict laws.

Nepal, despite its pro-queer global image, struggles with the acceptance of different gender identities. Despite progressive constitutional provisions, members of the community face all kinds of discrimination. This limits their access to proper healthcare, education, employment opportunities, and legal protection. Dignity becomes a dream.

Discrimination, LGBTIQA+ people agree, starts at home. Families try to ‘cure’ them when they finally muster up the courage to open up. Many are taken to see the doctor and prescribed antidepressants. When that doesn’t ‘set them straight’, beating them into submission is considered another option. 

“Discrimination paves the way for domestic and sexual violence,” says Sunita Lama, a transgender rights activist and sex worker. She adds the violence that LGBTIQA+ people experience stems from rigid and hierarchical ideas about sex, gender, and sexuality.

In a study conducted by UN Women, four in five LGBTIQA+ respondents said they had experienced at least one incident of violence. Out of 1,181 respondents, 81 percent reported being victims of violence based on their gender identity or sexual orientation, with 71 percent experiencing emotional violence, 46 percent physical violence, 46 percent sexual violence, and 40 percent economic violence.

The report, titled ‘Evidence to action: Addressing violence against LGBTIQA+ people in Nepal’, further stated that violence was compounded by factors such as socioeconomic status, disability, and caste or ethnicity. The report added that the LGBTIQA+ community, besides battling plenty of stigmas, faces problems related to legal protection, gender recognition, and marriage equality, all of which increase their hardships.

Manisha Dhakal, executive director of BDS, says there isn’t much information, data, or studies on the community. Even in the case of the few studies that have been carried out, there is no follow up. Despite the LGBTIQA+ people regularly facing violence—at home, on the streets, at the workplace—little is being done to tackle it.

Domestic violence largely implies violence against women. The LGBTIQA+ community finds itself sidelined here too. There is no proper mechanism for reporting violence, says Gurung. The police are usually indifferent—refusing to take down their complaints and going as far as to blame the victims.

Lama says the situation is worse for sex workers. There have been times the authorities have refused to believe they could be at the receiving end of violence. The common mindset is that transgenders are aggressive. “The police would rather just lock us up than listen to us,” she says.

There have been a lot of campaigns and programs against violence but most of these have only addressed violence against women, claims the LGBTIQA+ community. The media, rights activists, and the government all have a role to play in this. There is extensive reporting and response to violence against women in comparison to violence against other forms of gender. 

“There’s no denying that our society, at large, is still uncomfortable with queerness,” says Lama. Nepal has recently registered its first same-sex marriage, making it the second country in South Asia to do so. However, heterosexual relationships still enjoy a special status in our society.

ApEx asked 20 random people, in Pulchowk and Khumaltar in Lalitpur, if they were comfortable with different forms of non-heterosexual relationships. Most refused to talk about it, a few expressed their disgust with typical Nepali slang—chhya!—and two had to be explained what it meant. Only one, in her 20s, said ‘love is love’.

Organizations lobbying for LGBTIQA+ rights have been conducting awareness programs but the impact is subdued with no outside help. Gender studies is not a part of our school curriculum and gender stereotyping—think blue rooms, cars, and short hair for boys and pink dresses, dolls, and braids for girls—is still the norm.

The rigid notions of sex leave no room for deviation. And any deviation is feared, mocked, and shunned. This mindset in itself is a form of violence, says the community. It is what makes them vulnerable to other, more visible, forms of abuse.

According to a study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, LGBTIQA+ people are about six times more likely to experience violence by someone they know well and about 2.5 times more likely to be at the receiving end of it at the hands of a stranger, compared to non-LGBTIQA+ people.

LGBTIQA+ people are at increased risk of domestic violence from their partners as they often have nowhere to go. Most have been disowned by their parents and legal recourse is often difficult to pursue. Lama says the partners know this and often take advantage of it. “Prior experiences of physical or psychological trauma, such as bullying and hate crime, also make LGBTIQA+ victims of domestic violence less likely to seek help,” she says.

Sarita KC, executive director of Mitini Nepal, which has been working for queer rights in Nepal since 2002, says violence against the community isn’t addressed because of authorities’ underlying biases and lack of laws. Apart from the lack of family and societal acceptance, there is little to no representation at the policy level.

“There is less participation of LGBTIQA+ people in politics and in places where our voices could be heard,” she says. Queerphobia runs deep even when it isn’t immediately obvious. This makes change difficult, and a socio-cultural shift even more so.

Worse, violence against the community is justified by those who actually have the power to do something about it. Families use it to try to fix them. The police blame their queerness. Surely, by flaunting their over-the-top personalities, they were asking for it. Lama says the police have told many of her friends who have been abused that they must have done something to instigate fights. 

Violence in the LGBTIQA+ community takes many forms, from slurs and intimidation to abuse and even murder. In March 2019, Junu Gurung, a transwoman, was brutally beaten. She died from her injuries two days later. In January 2020, Ajita Bhujel, a transwoman, was strangled to death in Hetauda by a group of youths.

Gurung says it’s going to take a lot more than just awareness programs to curb violence in the LGBTIQA+ community. Nepal must have a proper mechanism to address violence. It must also ensure that victims get justice, despite their gender identity or sexual orientation. She says many community people hesitate to file complaints as they know nothing will be done. Their cases, registered after much pleading and palm-greasing, will be another paper in a dusty file somewhere. 

Violence, KC adds, is a daily reality for the LGBTIQA+ community—in buses, public spaces, schools and colleges, hospitals, and other service providers. There is online harassment as well. KC says their posts on Facebook elicit a lot of hateful and hurtful comments. “Our rights and space are constantly being violated but without public support, we can’t do much about it,” she says.

As her calloused hands deftly work the wood, carving the flower pattern, her face scrunches up in concentration. A small mistake could ruin the design. It must be difficult, I comment. She looks up. The studs in her ears catch the late afternoon sunlight. She smiles and says, “Only till you learn. After that, it’s not as hard as it looks.” Sanu Udas, 42, an employee at the Mangal Wood Carving in Satdobato, Lalitpur, has been carving patterns in wooden doors and windows for two years. She used to polish and paint them—for 10 years—before deciding to try her hand at wood-carving. Four other women work at the factory. They all say woodwork is strenuous but fun and gratifying at the same time. “I like the fact that your work isn’t wasted. It’s there for generations to see,” says Udas. Seeing her colleagues make designs on wood, she too wanted to do it. She gave up a couple of times and went back to polishing and painting till she eventually learnt how to hold a chisel properly, which, she says, is a crucial technique in woodworking. Udas has two daughters and her job has made it possible for her to take care of them. The pay might not be great, but it’s decent enough, she says. Things have gotten worse in the past year though. They don’t get very many orders. Mangal Wood Carving employs 12 people instead of the usual 35. Bijay Maharjan, whose father owns Mangal Wood Carving, says they get many orders from abroad. Their designs have made it to Japan, Australia, Dubai, the UK, and the US. But they don’t have local customers these days, he confesses. There are a lot of cheaper options like aluminum and laminates. The price of wood has gone up and its popularity has declined. “It takes my team of 12 people an entire month to make one piece of furniture. Add the price of labor to the cost of wood and you could very well have to shell out over Rs 200,000 for a front door,” says Maharjan. Bhuwan Shilpakar, owner of Shilpakar Wood Carving, located less than 100 meters away from Mangal Wood Carving, says earlier they used to make many household items like tables, chairs, and consoles. But now the orders are largely limited to main doors. Even then there aren’t that many. Before the pandemic, the company employed nine people. Now, there are just four woodworkers. Fifty-year-old Laxmi Shrestha is one of them. She says woodwork is engaging. It takes her mind off things. She also earns some pocket money and doesn’t have to depend on her family. But the lack of orders concerns her. She fears she will soon be without a job. Shilpakar makes them work on pieces to display at the shop for the occasional drop-in customer but Shrestha wonders how long that can go on. Most of the pieces she has worked on in the past few months are still gathering dust. There are over a dozen wood-carving businesses in less than a 200-meter stretch of road connecting Lagankhel to Satdobato in Lalitpur. Many more are located inside the Patan Industrial Estate, even though quite a few have closed down due to lack of business. I walked around the area and saw woodcarvers busy at work. None of them were working on customer orders. The pieces they were making would be put up for sale at the workshops. They said they were keeping their fingers crossed that someone would come to buy something soon. Manita Thapa, 42, who has been polishing and painting wood crafts for over two decades, says she finishes four to five pieces of door frames or a single door panel in a day, working from 10 in the morning to six in the evening. She’s happy with the money she gets. Despite not having much business, she feels her employer treats his employees well. “There’s a lot of fulfillment and joy in this line of work. It’s art, and not just a mundane, tedious work. The pay is alright,” says Thapa. Her colleague, Deepa Rai, 43, nods in agreement. She will have worked for nine years this year, and says it’s never been boring. She feels proud of the elaborate designs she makes. “Learning was the difficult part. Now that I know how it’s done, I love it,” she says. The work, as enjoyable as it is, comes with challenges. They have to sit in the same position for long hours. Everyone I spoke to said they suffer from backaches. Many have eyesight issues. Prem Bhakta Maharjan, 51, was bandaging a wound on his right foot—a heavy piece of wood fell on it causing a deep gash. Twenty-year-old Sanjeeta Rai from Dhankuta, who has been working at Ramesh Woodcarving, was nursing a splinter on her palm, below her thumb. She couldn’t get it out. Hari Gopal, 49, said his back was stiff and his legs numb. He had been sitting with his right leg sprawled out for almost four hours when I met him. As he works on a contract basis, which means he gets paid for the number of pieces he makes, he wants to complete as many as he can in a day. After all, he is the only working member in his family. Traditionally, the designs were deities and demons, religious symbols, or animals that were considered auspicious. This was when carved and lattice windows with peacocks were prominent fixtures in many homes. These designs aren’t much in demand these days, unless the orders come from Nepalis living abroad, agree business owners ApEx spoke to. They also confessed that since wood-carving is what their families have been doing for generations, they don’t want to make ‘contemporary’ designs just to attract a crowd. “The charm of wooden artifacts is in the traditional designs,” says Shilpakar. He says woodwork was once about showcasing the artist’s talents. Now the designs aren’t as intricate as slow, laborious work takes both time and effort. It also makes the price of the item go up. People aren’t willing to spend extra when they have options. But Shilpakar says wooden doors and windows are an investment. The upkeep is easy. If you know how to take care of it, a solid wooden door will last generations. You can also sell the wood after using it for years. Aluminum and laminates, on the other hand, look dirty and old once they lose their shine. The government’s construction guidelines that state houses being built at heritage sites should have wooden doors and windows has apparently kept many woodworkers in business. The government also offers subsidies and other incentives to buy construction materials. If this could be implemented on a large scale, it would be the biggest help for the revival of their business. The woodworkers fear the art form could otherwise soon be lost. “My son doesn’t want to take over the business. He says there is no scope in woodwork. We will perhaps be the last generation to make wood carvings if nothing is done to preserve the tradition,” says Shilpakar.  

A visit to a government office for some work—license renewal, filing your taxes, getting a passport—means taking a day off. But if you are willing to spend a few extra thousand rupees for ‘chiya kharacha’ or if you happen to know somebody at the offices, your work will be done in a couple of hours. You might not even have to be present depending on how light your purse has become or how strong your connection is. Minor grievances aside, rapists have walked free because of political clout. The culprits of the Sikta scam were given a clean chit by the Special Court. The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) regularly files cases against government officials for corruption. But with political pressure and protection, the issues are eventually swept under the carpet. “The problem is everyone is corrupt, from the highest ranking officials to the lowest tier clerks,” says Shubham Karki, 39, an engineer who has come home to Nepal from the US for a short break. He says he would like to return and live with his aging parents in Old Baneshwor which is where he grew up. But having seen his family have problems with simple things like paying vehicle taxes or getting a routine checkup, he shudders at the thought of living in Nepal permanently. Karki says he has tried to get his parents to move and live with him. But they say they are used to the ‘Nepali way of doing things.’ What seems like big problems to him feel like small inconveniences for them. “That’s just sad, isn’t it? Nepalis have internalized corruption. Those who have the money and power will get their work done but what about those who don’t have that luxury?” says a visibly frustrated Karki. Nepal got 34 in Transparency International’s 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index, which scored 180 countries on a scale from 0 (most corrupt) to 100 (least corrupt). According to the Berlin-based anti-corruption group, scores below 50 indicate a high level of corruption. People ApEx spoke to in Kathmandu and Lalitpur said everyone is corrupt, from top to bottom. Nothing gets done unless you know someone or pay extra. This makes daily life difficult and they worry about their children’s futures. A few years ago, they would have liked their sons and daughters to stay in Nepal and do something in their homeland. Seeing how the system in Nepal is rigged to favor the ones in power or with money, they want to send their children abroad. “Corruption has led to inflation, lack of opportunities, and next to no progress and development,” says Ramesh Thapa, 48, who is originally from Sindhuli. His family moved to Kathmandu for a better life. They were able to establish small businesses—among them is a furnishing store in Kumaripati, Lalitpur—and send their children to school. But is that all, he wonders? What about the good life that he envisioned for his children? Corruption is universal. It’s prevalent in developing as well as developed nations, both in private and public sectors. But it’s the extent of it that determines a country’s fate. When there is an under-the-table price for everything, nothing gets done unless the monetary demands are met. And that makes for a hostile and insecure environment. Tika Limbu, 42, proprietor of New UK Fancy in Manbhawan, Lalitpur, says the top honchos of the country are shameless. Over the years, we have seen those in power favor their own—give them positions they were undeserving of, make laws that benefit big businessmen but put more pressure on the poor, and let party-affiliated criminals get off scot-free. In a way, we have come to accept these actions as part and parcel of daily life. But the recent incident of politicians and bureaucrats sending Nepalis to the US as Bhutanese refugees is the lowest of low, says Limbu. Thapa adds that they have done something he would have never believed even corrupt officials such as ours were capable of, had he not read many detailed reports of it in the papers. “The politicians aren’t working for the people as they are supposed to. They rather work for themselves, their close ones, and those who are willing to fatten their bank balances,” says Limbu. Worse, as no one is clean there is an unwillingness to take action when somebody is found guilty of wrongdoing. The rare ones who come into power determined to change things find themselves caught in a cesspool of corrupt officials who create roadblocks. Gyanu Timilsina, 47, who runs Khumal Store in Khumaltar, Lalitpur, fears nothing will happen in the fake Bhutanese refugee scam. As it is, political leaders are already trying to contain the outrage. The only reason it has come this far is because of the American interest in the case. “If those in power can suppress this, it will fuel their confidence that they can get away with anything,” she says. Corruption undermines democracy and lays the foundation for criminal activities. It creates bureaucratic quagmires in places where there should be none—educational institutes, hospitals, the justice system, etc. The effects are far-reaching, including but not limited to political, economic, and social instability. People confess that there was a time when corruption was just something they talked about. It didn’t bother them as the trickle-down effect wasn’t that great. But now it keeps them up at night. They wonder if the little money they have in the banks is safe. Many are working out a plan B. Some say they are searching for jobs in India and elsewhere. With little to no business on most days in recent times, Thapa is resigned to the fact that there may be no better days ahead. “The government only takes from us and gives us nothing in return. Unless you have people in the right places, it’s impossible to prosper in business,” he says, adding his family’s lifestyle is getting worse by the day and they are looking for alternatives. “We might have to move, even though we don’t want to,” he says. Timilsina says we ourselves are responsible for this mess. We are the ones who gave power to the politicians by voting for them. We are blind to their faults. “We vote for them hoping they will make Nepal better but every leader that comes into power has his own agenda to get rich,” she says. Nepalis, she hopes, will learn a lesson and elect good people in the future, and not egoists who toot their horns, aka those ‘who can fly in helicopters’. Ram Tamang, 45, a daily wage earner who lives in Ratopul, Kathmandu says people like him have never been the country’s concerns. He laments that those in power continue to exploit us for their gains and we let them do so by being swayed by their empty promises. “We think one leader is better than another. When KP Oli was the prime minister, we thought Sher Bahadur Deuba or Pushpa Kamal Dahal would be our savior.  But they are all corrupt and thus the same,” he says. There has never been a lot of power in public voices, as much as we would like to tell ourselves otherwise. And now it’s fading, suppressed by all the pressure politicians and bureaucrats put on the government to act in their favor. Limbu says there have been so many rallies and protests but they haven’t made much impact. They have managed to create an uproar and led to some conversations on social media but eventually, they have all fizzled out. “We need unbiased and fearless leaders who can differentiate between right and wrong. We need a complete overhaul of the system,” she says. Limbu doesn’t expect there to be zero corruption. She just hopes for a less corrupt government, for the sake of her 13- and seven-year-old daughters.

At a pharmacy in Tripureshwor, Kathmandu, the number of people coming with complaints of flu, skin rashes, stomach aches, and other common ailments has doubled in the past year. The pharmacist there says that people skimp on doctor’s consultation fees whenever they can, especially since a less than five-minute visit sets them back by almost a thousand rupees. Sarina Lama, 45, who was at one of the pharmacies in the area to buy some antidiarrheal medicine for her teenage daughter, says she hasn’t been to a hospital in the past five years or so. Every time someone in her family of five falls sick, a local pharmacist is consulted. She also has a nurse in her neighborhood whom she sometimes asks for advice when a fever shows no signs of abating or a cough won’t go away. Rai realizes how risky that is. The last time her nine-year-old son was ill she was up all night, for several nights in a row, as he was ‘making strange noises’ in his sleep. She was contemplating taking him to the hospital, wondering if she could ask her employer for an advance, when the wheezing stopped and she heaved a sigh of relief. “A doctor’s appointment would have created havoc in our monthly budget since he would have run ten different tests. We would, most probably, have had to cut back on some basic things like eggs, meat, or petrol for my scooter,” says Rai, a salesperson who works from ten in the morning to seven in the evening six days a week at a retail store in Mid-Baneshwor, Kathmandu. In February 2021, the Nepal Medical Association (NMA) doubled doctor’s fees. It shot up to Rs 825 from Rs 450 per consultation. It’s likely to go up again. The NMA and the Association of Private Health Institutions of Nepal released a joint statement informing people about the increment due to inflation. According to the government’s rules, doctor’s fees can be revised every two years. Most people ApEx spoke to said going to the doctors is expensive. At most hospitals, they will order a battery of often unnecessary tests, sometimes even asking patients to repeat a few blood works for confirmation. People also say that as the prices go up, the quality of the service deteriorates. The wait is long, and doctors spend just a few minutes with each patient, sometimes even openly discussing their case in front of other patients. A reputed hospital in Thapathali, Kathmandu, is notorious for sending people inside the doctor’s office in droves. Though this violates the medical code of ethics, doctors can be seen talking to and examining patient number one while patient number two waits for his turn on the bench right behind him and another lurks by the door, ready to step in as soon as patient number one gets up from the stool. Sanjit Chaudhary, pharmacist at Alka Hospital Pharmacy in Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, says people seem to rely on over-the-counter medication rather than visiting a doctor. Sometimes, the condition worsens and they are left with no option but to spend thousands on treatment. This, he says, wouldn’t be the case if healthcare was affordable and people didn’t have to shell our hundreds of rupees for a two-minute chat with a doctor. “People tend to adopt a wait and watch approach when they are ill. If their condition worsens, they spend a few more days trying out different over-the-counter medications. There is this hesitation to go see a doctor right away,” says Chaudhary. This, people ApEx spoke to at a few hospitals in Thapathali, Kathmandu, and Jawalakhel, Lalitpur say, is because of how expensive a hospital visit is as well as the fact that the testing process before the actual treatment is tedious. Despite how expensive private hospitals are, they lack proper facilities. You are made to go from one building to another and the queue is long. Everywhere you go, you are told to wait. “You don’t want to come to a hospital unless you absolutely have to,” says a 62-year-old resident of Kupondole who was at a hospital in Thapathali, Kathmandu, for his annual checkup. He confessed he wouldn’t have come if his son and daughter in-law hadn’t been after him. He, on the condition of anonymity, says he has been coming to the hospital for five years and while it has always been expensive, it’s even more ridiculous now. “Worse, the hospital charged around Rs 700 extra during the Covid-19 pandemic. Apparently, it was for all the precautionary measures they were taking,” he says. Hospital and physician prices are often extremely high and vary across institutions. These arbitrary high prices are a major driver of the increasingly unaffordable health care costs. For example, a Vitamin D blood test costs Rs 4,500 at a hospital in Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, while the same costs Rs 2,700 at a reputed lab a two-minute walk away from it. Forty-two-year-old Goma Raut, who has been running a retail store in Battisputali, Kathmandu, for the past eight years, says everything is expensive and healthcare even more so. “If we fall ill, we have no option but to surrender to our fates,” she says. Raut laments that the government only takes from its people and doesn’t provide anything in return. “There are rules we must follow and taxes that we must pay while the government does as it pleases,” she says. “Is it even monitoring how private hospitals are run?” Renuka Thapa, 49, who works as a maid, took up two additional jobs after her husband’s death due to Covid. This means she has to work at five different homes every day. She doesn’t have a single day off. Though she has managed to pay off the loans she took to foot her husband’s medical bills, she has no savings. The money she makes is spent on rent and food. She struggles to pay her children’s school fees. Her eldest son has asthma and she worries about what she will do if he falls ill and she has to take him to the hospital. “I can’t afford healthcare on top of all our daily expenses. It’s way too costly,” she says, adding most doctors don’t even attend to their patients properly. Government-run hospitals are poorly managed and private hospitals seem to bill you for the air you breathe while you are there, she adds. An ophthalmologist who has been practicing for over 40 years refused to hike his fees when it went up from Rs 450 to Rs 850 in 2021. Many of his patients wouldn’t be able to spend an additional Rs 500 per visit, he said. Six months ago, he started charging Rs 650 but he says that is as high as he will ever go, even when he spends at least 10 minutes with a patient. But not all medical practitioners think that way and that’s perhaps where the problem lies.  

‘Chiya khanu bho?’ (Did you have tea?) is the Nepali hello. Most people begin their day with a cup of tea. You must have tea when you are visiting someone. Tea is a staple at meetings and other gatherings. A little bit of ‘chiya kharcha’ speeds up official work. Tea is a huge part of our culture, and local tea haunts have always been conversation hubs, where people gather to discuss politics, the economy, and everything else under the sun. Cashing in on this social pull of tea are numerous cafés where tea is the main focus. Several years ago, Kathmandu saw a proliferation of coffee shops with a new establishment opening up every other month or so. Today, tea shops are all the rage. Nitesh Bhandari, the founder of Mr. Chiya, a quaint little place serving tea and a few other drinks like lassi and lemonade, says he started the café two months ago despite the looming economic crisis because ‘people will always drink tea’. Business, so far, has been promising and Bhandari already has plans to open a few more outlets in the future. “Nepalis love tea. They don’t need a reason to drink tea. People might want to cut back on their coffee consumption but they will always say yes to another cup of tea,” says Bhandari. Mr. Chiya’s outlet in Shantinagar, Kathmandu, sees a lot of regulars from the area. Bhandari says they come to discuss work, catch up, or get a few minutes of rest during a busy day. Chiya Ghar in Kumaripati, Lalitpur, is usually packed from 10 in the morning to noon. It’s mostly college students who come to have a cup of tea or two before heading home, says Nirmal Thapa Magar who has been working there for a year. Their bestsellers are ‘Matka Chiya’ which has nuts and dried fruits, and spices like clove and cardamom infused ‘Masala Milk’. “People sit around chit-chatting and drinking tea. It’s a lively atmosphere,” says Magar. This is true of the other three outlets of Chiya Ghar located at New Baneshwor, Putalisadak, and Pepsicola in Kathmandu. The outlets open from seven in the morning to eight at night and the busiest hours usually start from two in the afternoon. “People don’t just drink tea. They socialize over it which, I believe, is why it’s so popular,” adds Magar. However, that wasn’t always the case. There was a time when only a few of Kathmandu’s elites and the privileged class drank tea. In the 1800s, a Chinese emperor gifted a tea sapling to Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana. His son-in-law Gajaraj Singh Thapa had the sapling planted in Illam in eastern Nepal, thereby establishing the country’s first tea garden. Currently, there are more than 160 tea gardens in Nepal, and over 17,000 farmers engaged in tea cultivation. In 2021, Nepal exported $24.3m worth of tea, becoming the 30th largest exporter of tea in the world. Nepali exports tea to mostly India, Germany, Russia, Japan, and the United States. In the fiscal year 2021-22, Jhapa was the largest tea-growing district in Nepal with 10,500 hectares under cultivation according to the National Tea and Coffee Development Board. Rajesh Regmi, founder of Dari Bhai ko Chiya Pasal in Sankhamul, Kathmandu, says Nepal is a tea-drinking society. He says he started the tea shop three years ago as he saw a good business opportunity in the sector. “It also doesn’t take a lot of investment to open a tea shop either,” he says. The returns, he adds, are decent. Those who frequent the place vouch for its popularity. Dari Bhai ko Chiya Pasal is always crowded, they say. So is The Chiya Spot in Kumaripati and Boudha. Or Ghainte Chiya in Ekantakuna. The places that serve tea enjoy steady business. There isn’t a time of the day when these places are empty. There are always a few customers. Sujan Shrestha, manager at The Chiya Spot, says youngsters spend hours at their outlet. With a daily visitor count of around 200, the café has around eight to nine varieties of tea. Their specialties are nut tea and chocolate tea. But a lot of people prefer to stick to regular black tea and milk tea. “Nepalis take their tea differently. Some like it sweet while others like it strong, without milk and sugar. You could say everybody has a type,” says Shrestha who works at the Kumaripati branch of the outlet. People who come to The Chiya Spot know what they want but they are also intrigued by the different varieties that are available there. Since even the most expensive of their teas doesn’t cost more than Rs 200 for a cup, people don’t mind trying new flavors. Shraddha Shakya, 22, an engineering student, who drinks at least three cups of tea daily, says she is fascinated by the burgeoning of tea shops in the city. She has been to a few of them and says they all have lovely setups. Unlike local tea shops where you step in, have a cup of tea, and get out, you can actually spend a few hours in these cafes and get some work done while indulging in some good tea. But as a self-confessed connoisseur of tea, Shakya says she wants to try them all out before settling on a good one to visit regularly. And with a new place popping up every now and then, she says she’s spoiled for choice. “It’s hard to find a good place to sit and do your work. Coffee shops are expensive. But tea shops are moderately priced and now there are just so many to choose from,” she says. Bhandari says tea shops and cafés are good businesses because tea will always be relevant and important in our society. Though Mr Chiya serves coffee too because “they don’t want to ostracize the occasional coffee drinker”, people mostly order tea. Shrestha of The Chiya Spot says nobody ever asks for coffee and they don’t serve it either. Magar of Chiya Ghar agrees and says coffee shops serve just one or two types of tea, that is if they serve tea at all. So, it makes sense for tea shops to exclusively sell tea as well, he says. Café operators say that tea sells round the year, though sales are slightly more during the winter season. But that doesn’t mean business wanes in the summer. “We have a ‘chiya khadai kura garum na’ (let’s talk over tea) mindset and that’s the reason behind the success of tea shops in the city,” says Regmi.

On a bright sunny afternoon this past week, a man lay face down on the grassy patch a little off the sidewalk in Jawalakhel, Lalitpur. As flies buzzed at his dirty, cracked feet, he was in a deep slumber. The locals say he is a regular. He comes over drunk, unable to walk, and plonks himself down on the grass before eventually tumbling over sideways. Another man had passed out on the footpath in Kupondole, his feet jutting out on the road. He strongly reeked of liquor, said the traffic police officer who pulled him out of harm’s way. Alcoholism has always been a problem in Nepal because of easy access and affordability. But the problem has gotten worse in recent times, say those who run rehabilitation centers. Earlier there used to be a lot of drug users but now there are far more cases of alcohol abuse, says Sanjeev Shahi, program coordinator at Alcoholic Recovering Voice Nepal. “This is mostly because Nepal has no rules and regulations on who can sell or buy alcohol and when,” he says. Shahi says they tried hard to lobby for a stricter alcohol sales policy. But their efforts have been in vain. There are liquor stores selling alcohol round the clock right outside the rehabilitation center. This, he says, shows the government’s indifference. Time and again, some rules to curb alcohol sales like restricting the sale of alcohol to those under 18 and prohibiting sales near schools and colleges have been proposed. But the implementation has been half-hearted, says Shahi. There are grocery stores selling alcohol right outside schools. A large part of the problem lies in the fact that alcohol is culturally and socially accepted. Many don’t think consuming it is bad. It’s rather the opposite—if you don’t drink, you don’t fit in at social events. Celebrations call for a shot. A hard day at work demands a glass of beer or two. In some indigenous cultures, alcohol is sent to the bride’s family during weddings and there is even a ritual of offering alcohol to the deceased. The Newars brew alcohol on many important occasions including religious ceremonies. “People drink alcohol under different pretexts. The government turns a blind eye to it because the liquor industry generates revenue,” says Tsering Wangdu, founder of Sober Recovery and Rehabilitation Center (SRRC). The biggest challenge in tackling alcohol addiction is the stamp of approval drinking seems to enjoy in our culture. But the use of alcohol is associated with an increased risk of injuries, accidents, and even fatalities. According to the Nepal Police, there have been lots of cases of alcohol-induced altercations. There are even instances of domestic abuse and sexual violence among other crimes. Earlier this year, a man from Parsa was killed in a theft gone wrong. Dhruv Bahadur Khadka, 57, was returning from a party when he bumped into Ram Bahadur Thapa. Since Khadka was drunk (witnesses at the party said he couldn’t even stand straight), Thapa saw this as the perfect opportunity to rob him. After coaxing him into a taxi, saying he would drop Khadka home, Thapa took him to a dark alley and punched and kicked him while trying to rob him. Studies have shown that children of alcoholics have higher chances of becoming addicted themselves. Alcoholism often leads to many health, social, and family problems. Shishir Thapa, the founder of Cripa Nepal, says he has seen people from all kinds of backgrounds—from daily wage earners to reputed doctors—risk financial ruin or be estranged from their families because of their addiction. Wangdu adds divorce cases have gone up as sober spouses find it difficult to deal with drunk partners. When both parents drink, children are neglected and are likely to get into bad situations, not to mention the emotional trauma that comes with dealing with an alcoholic parent. Sajina KC, 51, who works in the development sector, lost her father when she was in her 20s. He was an alcoholic who would drink day in and day out. In the year before he passed, she must have spoken to him less than 10 times, she says. He was always drunk and passed out otherwise. KC says it was painful to watch her once-strong father wither away like that. It still hurts, she says, to know that her father might have been alive today had he not been addicted to alcohol. “I realize I’m also genetically predisposed to alcoholism. So, I try not to drink much and usually stick to a cocktail or two when I’m out with friends,” says KC, confessing that she enjoys a drink and finds reasons to grab one after work, and that scares her. Those who work at rehabilitation centers say addiction starts like that. One drink leads to two and then to several. Eventually, you become a habitual drinker, says Wangdu. “There is no other way than to just go cold turkey.” But that’s easier said than done and relapses are common, both in habitual drinkers who want to quit as well as chronic alcoholics. The success rate of recovery at SRRC is around two percent. That’s because people rarely stay longer than the stipulated four months. Either the patient himself goes home saying he would like to try staying sober on his own or his family members take him home for various reasons like weddings or religious functions. “If people were to complete the course of treatment, then the success rate would be higher. But how long a person needs to stay in the center depends on how bad his addiction is. Some require four months, others might take six or eight,” says Wangdu who believes family support is essential for a person to come out of alcohol addiction. An alcoholic usually doesn’t realize he needs help until it’s too late. Family members have to step in, he says. “They have to ensure their alcoholic parent or child, or sibling gets to rehab and stays there for however long it takes to get out of addiction.” Thapa, on the other hand, says the government needs to support rehabilitation centers to make their work more impactful. “There are no awareness programs on the effects of excessive consumption of alcohol. Rather, social media glamorizes it,” says Thapa adding celebrities promote a drinking culture with photos of parties and gatherings where they are seen holding glasses of wine or downing shots. “It’s time we realized there are no upsides to drinking and stopped promoting it as a ‘cool’ activity,” he says.

‘Fohor aayo’ is how most of us react to the trash collector’s shrill whistle. How many of us know their names? Would we even recognize them if we saw them when they weren’t emptying out our trash bins? Do we bother to tell them there is broken glass in one of the bags lest they cut themselves? Have we ever thanked them for cleaning up our homes for us? Khadga Bahadur, 40, has been a trash collector for 16 years. No one has said a kind word to him in all these years or inquired about how he is faring, not even during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Instead, they scold him when he doesn’t follow their orders, which is usually to collect trash from inside their compounds. Some rudely turn away, disgusted by his dirty work clothes—baggy and faded blue jeans, torn in far too many places, and a thick black jacket with a green stripe on the arms that has seen better days. “I visit almost 400 to 500 houses in a day. In most of them, people expect me to lug the trash bins out to where the vehicle is parked, empty them, and put them back. They say mean things like they are the ones who pay my salary and that I should just do my job when I ask them to bring it out themselves,” says Bahadur. “I’m usually made to feel like I’m beneath them.” Around 4,000 laborers from 75 private companies and municipalities handle the waste Kathmandu generates on a daily basis—1,200 tons, out of which 65 percent is organic and 15-20 percent is recyclable, according to the Solid Waste Management Association of Nepal. Most of these are men who first go from door to door picking up household trash and then segregate it at various collection points. Kathmandu’s inability and unwillingness to segregate means trash collectors like Bahadur often have to lift heavy loads as well as suffer cuts and injuries. Broken glass is thrown together with kitchen waste. Sometimes, mud, stones, wood, and other construction materials are hidden below heaps of paper or fruit and vegetable peels. “We aren’t allowed to collect mud and stones. And most people know that. But they trick us into it and our wages are cut by the companies we work for,” says Bahadur, a lump forming in his throat as he talks about how thankless and undignified his job feels at times, mostly because of people’s attitude towards them. Surendra Bhusal, 39, who has been in this line of work for a decade now, says it’s the little things that dampen his spirits—the way people won’t look at him when they are giving him instructions, the fact that many people call him ‘fohor bhai’, or how no one ever utters a simple ‘thank you’ even when he goes out of his way to empty their heavy, dripping bins and put them back inside their homes. A trash collector’s job is rife with risks. Small injuries aside, most of them suffer from long-term health issues because of exposure to different kinds of health hazards. Many are unable to afford medical treatment as their wages barely cover the costs of the basics. They have to work to survive but their job puts their lives at risk. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, many of them didn’t receive a single dose of vaccine but were compelled to work as theirs was an essential service. Naresh Majhi, a waste picker, says people who dump their trash on the roadside or on the river banks make their lives all the more difficult. In the summer months, waste quickly decomposes and gives off a foul stench. Majhi and his colleagues are often berated by the locals for not cleaning up the mess. “First, they dump it on the streets and then they are after us to clear it up,” he says, adding he requests people not to throw trash on the road and while many of them say they won’t, they soon go back on their word. “It’s a clear lack of empathy,” he says Segregating waste would make their jobs a whole lot easier, agree the trash collectors ApEx spoke to. But segregation takes time and effort and people would rather not go through the trouble, says Kiran Shrestha of Action Waste Pvt. Ltd, a waste management company in Kathmandu. It’s apparently far much simpler to dump everything together. Waste management companies had been trying to reduce the volume of waste at source much before Kathmandu Metropolitan City’s mayor Balen Shah made segregation compulsory at the beginning of this fiscal year (which, unfortunately, only lasted a couple of months). Time and again, efforts have been made to expand the lifespan of the landfill as well as to improve the working conditions of the trash collectors by urging Kathmandu residents to segregate, says Shrestha. Currently, in areas where Action Waste works, less than two percent of households segregate their trash, he adds. “The problem isn’t that people don’t know about segregating or recycling. But since there aren’t any clear policies regarding it, no one bothers with it,” he says. There was a time when Action Waste tried collecting dry and wet waste on different days, but people would invariably mix the two together. Fifty-year-old Prakash Pariyar, who has been a trash collector for 24 years, says the stench of rotting waste gives him headaches. Sometimes, he is unable to eat for days as he can’t get the sight of waste out of his mind. There are soiled pads, dirty diapers, and even dead mice in the trash he collects. When it’s all mixed with dry waste like plastic, paper, and metal, the volume is huge and difficult to manage, he says. “Sometimes when we drop some trash while transferring it into the collection vehicle, people balk at the sight of it. It’s their waste and they are disgusted by it. But they never stop to think how we feel while handling it,” says Pariyar. Worse, despite working long hours, from 5:30 in the morning to eight at night, and putting up with the many humiliations that come with the job, he doesn’t make enough to give his family a decent life. He fears how his family will survive if he falls ill and is unable to work. The company he works for won’t come to his aid, neither will the communities he frequents for trash collection. The government is oblivious to their sufferings. “Most people don’t even know our names. The thought of helping us will never occur to them,” he says. Kathmandu has always struggled with managing its trash and our houses would overflow with all the waste we create as we go about our lives, had it not been for the laborers who take care of it for us. Perhaps the least we could do to show our gratitude is to get to know their names, smile, occasionally thank them, and speak to them in a manner we would like to be spoken to. “We aren’t asking for people to respect us. We just want to be shown some basic decency,” says Bahadur.

The bills are mounting. The rent is due. There’s her daughter’s college fee to pay. Her son’s birthday is in a week and he wants cake and the fancy sneakers everybody at his school is obsessed with these days. Kumari Tamang, a 41-year-old resident of Ratopul, Kathmandu works as a cleaner at an NGO. She earns a decent salary but with rising prices of daily necessities, Tamang is finding it hard to cover the costs. “I got a decent job and managed to clear all my debts. But it’s piling up again as everything is getting just so expensive,” she says. Every time the price of groceries or fuel goes up, her heart sinks. Sometimes, she is up all night worrying about how she is going to pay for everything her family needs. Her husband suffers from a chronic illness and needs regular checkups. According to the Nepal Living Standard Survey III, 2010/11, poor people (those who earn less than two dollars per day) spend 72 percent of their total consumption expenditure on food. Increased spending on food often leads to reduced expenditures on health and education. This makes life more difficult for those already below the poverty line. Many even put their lives at risk by skimping on hospital visits and doctor fees. ApEx spoke to 20 people at random. Everybody said they were worried by the rising fuel and food prices. Worse, the pricing of most things, they said, seems to be arbitrary. The government isn’t regulating the market properly, they complained. People felt like they weren’t getting their money’s worth. As prices of essentials continue to surge, people are forced to either stretch their incomes by cutting down on expenses or look at ways to make extra money. A street vendor in Maitidevi, Kathmandu, said his family was only cooking only a meal a day to save on LPG gas, which is currently priced at Rs 1,800 a cylinder. A hospitality student in Kathmandu sold his motorcycle to pay rent and buy food. “I was spending a lot of money on petrol. Now, I walk to most places,” he says. Many people lost their jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the economy was yet to recover when the conflict in Ukraine put a further damper on things. The disruption of the demand and supply chain meant inflation would only get worse. But as expected as that was, it has still been hard to cope. “My husband was made redundant during the Covid-19 lockdown and I’m the sole earning member of my family,” says Shobha Budathoki who works at Bajeko Sekuwa in Anamnagar, Kathmandu. Budathoki has two other part-time jobs besides her main one but it’s a struggle to pay all her bills. She has two sons enrolled at a government school. She worries about their future, about if she will be able to send them to good colleges. It isn’t just those from the lower economic strata who are feeling the pinch. With the official inflation rate now up to 7.68 percent—and the unofficial rate perhaps much higher—those with well-paying jobs fret about the rising prices too. Their household expenditure has gone up and, with no changes in their income, many are dipping into their savings. Anushka Pant, a 37-year-old banker ApEx met at Sanepa, Lalitpur, says she used to save a fixed amount every month. It was her emergency fund. But now she isn’t able to do that. All her salary goes to rent, utilities, and groceries. She is living paycheck to paycheck, sometimes even taking loans from her friends and colleagues. “This makes me feel extremely vulnerable. I’m not comfortable with my current financial situation,” she says. Her friends, Pant adds, are suffering too. There’s a nurse who hasn’t been paid in two months and she’s finding it difficult to cope. She is always stressed about money and how she can provide for her family as her parents depend on her. Another friend, who was living in Kathmandu by herself, has gone back to her hometown Biratnagar, after falling behind on rent. Nothing is cheap anymore, says Ram Kharel who has been running a hardware store in Lalitpur for six years. An egg costs Rs 18. The price of milk has shot up by Rs 20 a liter in just a couple of months. The price of sunflower oil is Rs 240 a liter while ghee now costs Rs 900 a kg. “At this rate, it’s getting increasingly difficult to feed my family,” says Kharel. Unlike in developed countries, Nepal lacks proper health care and education policies. There is no welfare system where the state takes care of some of your expenses. This means people need to plan and save for emergencies. Most people ApEx spoke to seemed to be preoccupied with ‘what ifs’: What if someone in their family falls ill? Will they be able to provide the necessary treatment? What if they can’t send their children to good schools and colleges? Will they lose out on the chance to live a good life? Shambhu Rai, an electrician who lives in Bhaktapur, says as prices escalate, he finds himself working round-the-clock. His day starts as early as six in the morning and ends as late as midnight. If he doesn’t take up as many jobs as possible, he says his family will have to compromise on something or the other. “Either my wife will have to take up odd jobs or we will have to skip meals,” says Rai who wants his six-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son to continue studying at the English boarding school they attend. He’s not compromising on their education, he says. “It’s their only shot at a decent life. My wife and I never got that chance and we want to make sure our children aren’t similarly deprived,” he says. High food prices are forcing people to make some difficult choices as their household budgets are upended. With no sign of even a cool-down, it’s unclear when the prices will stabilize and then drop. For those with limited means, it means having to pick and choose; it’s never having enough; it’s constantly worrying about tomorrow. “This makes for an unhinging experience,” says Kumari.