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As an angling enthusiast, I was once drawn to the research of a particular cold water gamefish called the Himalayan Golden Mahseer (tor putitora), Sahar, in Nepali. It is a migratory fish that inhabits our rivers like Sapta Koshi with its seven tributaries in the east and rivers like Karnali, Seti Karnali, Mahakali, Bheri, and Narayani in the west. Golden Mahseer spawns during monsoon floods (June-September). It travels great distances upstream to spawn. After monsoon breeding, they leave the foothills and make a migratory run back to the colder climes of the upper reaches. Curiously, its entire life cycle seems on a migratory run. I realized I needed more than poring over several books on Golden Mahseer and browsing the Internet to suffice my probe into the fish that had, over the decades, merited rave acclaim among domestic and international anglers. It called for venturing the rivers to gather first-hand home knowledge about the coveted gamefish. In seven years, my craze took me to a horde of rivers in the east and west of Nepal in quest of the legendary fish. Subsequently, way back in 2008, one of my explorations took me to the mighty Sapta Koshi, in far-east Nepal to Trivenighat, Dhankuta district, some eight kilometers from the renowned pilgrimage, Barahachhetra (20 km from Dharan). I had a fisher friend from Dharan, Tek Bahadur Limbu, as a company and a guide. The site for my angling was Trivenighat at the confluence of three rivers: Sun Koshi, Arun, and Tammar, a three-hour grueling hike from Barahachhetra along a narrow foot trail scary for a city slicker like me. There was no motor road then, only a narrow trail hewn into the side of hills—only a couple of feet wide at some places—with more than 500m sheer drops to the roaring Sapta Koshi. As we slogged along, the sight was breathtaking, however. I often stopped to gawk at the great expanse of water that churned into raging whitewater rapids, cascading eddies over rocks, giant boulders, some car-sized, and calm, inviting pools. And the deep rumble of the Koshi music to the ears. The swollen river after the confluence at Trivenighat is called Sapta Koshi, a merger of seven rivers. Curiously, Triveni is also a meeting point of three districts: Dhankuta, Bhojpur and Udayapur. Previously, Trivenighat was also known as Majhinighat, named after a Majhi (fishing community) lady. As the folklore goes, before a suspension bridge over Tammar, the lady used to ferry travelers across the river in a dug-out canoe. Locals told me that once she shuttled the late King Mahendra across. At the time, she did not have a ghost of an idea that her fellow commuter was the king incognito. The small settlement was populated mainly by Rais, especially of the Bantawa and Chamling clans, who lived by fishing, raising goats, and selling bamboo, but were given the harsh land with scanty crops. Because of the rugged, arid terrain, rice cultivation was hardly any. For sustenance, the locals mainly grew corn, their staple food. To them, a handful of rice meals a year was nothing short of a luxury; many could not even afford it. After a tough slog in the March heat, we finally arrived at our destination; all shagged out. Starved to death, we stopped by a tea shop and immediately wolfed down on dal-bhat with the plates heaped up. As we ate, my eyes kept traveling to the confluence clearly in sight from the eatery. Following a much-needed respite, Tek and I, armed with our fishing gear, advanced to the confluence where Tammar met the merger of Arun and Sun Koshi (also called Dudh Koshi by the locals). I could not wait to cast my rod. Since Tek knew the best spots like the back of his hand, I let him call the shots, and we got cracking positioned 300 yards apart. While he chose the raging confluence, strewn with big rocks and boulders, I began casting way downriver. We planned to use metal spinners as a lure for the day's angling. I had no clue if Tek was lucky to land some mahseer, but I had no bite even after three hours of working the river up and down, casting-and-retrieving my lure. I knew Golden Mahseer was elusive and hard to come by. So I kept on with my casting like clockwork. Then, my eyes caught a strange sight some 200 yards upriver. I watched incredulously the distant two figures floating down the river, what looked like—on their feet. What on earth was that? I asked myself! I hastily retrieved my fishing line—and waited with bated breath, my camera on the ready. As it turned out, the duo was on a flimsy raft. And then, I froze—because one of the guys got out of sight as he fell overboard in the churning waves. Stunned, it left me at the edge of my seat. Then what seemed like ages, I saw the poor guy's bobbing upper body hanging onto one end of the bouncing raft as the choppy waters slapped him. He tried to clamber up, slipped, and fell again into the raging water. He kept trying but could not heave himself overboard. Then, to my horror, I lost him between the leaping waves. Blast it! I started almost praying as I furiously clicked away on my camera. I jumped next! I spotted him again struggling hard to join his mate, who seemed helpless trying to steer the unwieldy raft. “Come on, come on, you can do it, dude!” I muttered to myself. And then—a miracle happened! He clambered aboard! I sighed in relief and waved madly at them as they bobbed up and down and shot past me almost at arm's length. I was a witness to the above fateful drama way back in March 2008. I learned later that those guys were local villagers ferrying bamboo down the big river to sell, a common practice among the riverside communities to supplement their earnings. The villagers lash together the bamboo in bunches of 25 to 30 stalks by a jungle vine locally called birali and stripped bamboo skins called choya and shape them into a cone to serve as a raft, an ingenious craft handed down to them for generations. The trussed-up bamboo is taken apart and sold upon arrival at the destination. I also learned the confluence at Triveni, held in awe and fear by the rafters, had long been the site of numerous accidents, resulting in severe injuries and even fatalities. [email protected]

In 1994, in the southern hemisphere, touted as the ‘The Land Down Under’, once the sole habitat of the Aborigines, the primal, the flattest, and the aridest inhabited continent called Australia, a country steeped in geological contradictions and deep-seated enigmas—the world got bowled over a discovery made of a prehistoric flora. In the Mesozoic Era (252-66m years ago), when the dinosaurs once roamed this Blue Planet, strangely, alongside those prehistoric reptiles, lived and thrived a species of wild trees. Miraculously, they outstripped the dinosaurs and survived the ravages of time and natural catastrophes for all these legions of millenniums to this day—a bizarre mystery. The discovery was made by fluke by David Noble, a field officer from the National Parks and Wildlife Service of New South Wales (NSW), with two of his avid bushwalker friends while abseiling down rugged canyons of Wollemi National Park. Established in 1979, covering an area of 5,017 sq km, Wollemi National Park is just 130 km northwest of Sydney, the largest city in Australia. Scarcely did David realize then the unearthing of the mysterious tree would go down in the annals of history. While having lunch in a secluded gorge with his mates, David, also a botanist, noticed a bunch of strange trees he had never seen before in his career. Curious, he collected a few leaves as samples to be identified by experts at the NPWS lab stationed in Blue Mountains, New South Wales. A passionate backpacker, and a fanatic of rappelling, David was obsessed with exploring newer gorges, canyons, and caves, least heard of and virtually untrodden by others in the vast wilderness of NSW. In his career with NSW National Parks, he had, nigh, scoured every inch of the Wollemi wilderness within the park. It soon led to the finding that the strange species of trees were none other than the prehistoric Wollemi pines that had lived in the epoch when dinosaurs dominated the Earth. Long believed by palaeo-botanists to be extinct and considered as just fossil remains, they got christened with the names the ‘Dinosaur Trees’, and ‘The Living Fossil Trees’, and several others. The species was named the Wollemi Nobilis after the groundbreaker, David Noble. The news spread like a wild bushfire and took the world by storm—it was as good as rediscovering live dinosaurs, alive and kicking. A miracle, indeed. “The Wollemia nobilis was common across Australia from more than 100m years ago to about 60m years ago. But, as the continent dried out while drifting north, about 30m years ago, the trees started to disappear,” wrote Teo Armus for a Washington Post story. The mysterious Wollemi pines/conifer trees grow as tall as 40 meters and belong to the evergreen family, bearing cones with spindly branches, coarse dark bark, and dense fern-like, lime-green foliage. The only kind in its genus, the Wollemi pine’s base, can get as thick as 1.2 meters. Botanists contend the Wollemi pine natural self-coppicing (sprouting multiple trunks) from its base enabled it to withstand the worst catastrophes. Australia has a lengthy history of natural disasters, such as severe heatwaves, drought, tropical cyclones, rainstorms, and summer bushfires. It was nothing short of an absolute miracle they miraculously endured all these years by the millions. Today, only 100-odd numbers of adult trees in different stands and 200 to 300 maturing juveniles remain in an area of 10 square kilometers in Wollemi National Park and the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, NSW,  Australia. Wollemi Park was categorized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2002. These prehistoric pines are found only in Australia's Wollemi National Park and no other place on Earth. The NSW kept the Wollemi pines’ location classified to avert potential pathogen infection, vandalism, and illegal collection and to thwart human encroachment and predation. The primal species survive in a deep gorge between soaring sandstone cliffs, some from the Triassic period, in the Wollemi National Park. The NSW has still kept the exact location a ‘closely-guarded secret’. Like many endangered wild species of trees worldwide, the Wollemi pines, despite having survived millenniums, stand critically endangered today, claim senior phytologists. And one of the threats includes bushfires, among others. In 2019-2020 a chain of colossal bushfires dubbed the ‘Black Summer,’ which swept across the Aussieland, proved cataclysmic in Australia’s environmental history. The mega holocaust seared over 10m hectares, primarily forests in southeast Australia. A billion animals perished, and several endangered species—driven to extinction. In New South Wales alone, five million hectares of forestland, including some sections of the Wollemi National Park, was struck down by the devastating inferno and brought in its wake a colossal loss of human lives and property and a ‘silent death’ to invaluable flora and fauna by the millions. And, to the horror of the Wollemi and NSW Parks officials, the bushfires threatened to destroy the small grove of fewer than 200 of the last surviving Wollemi pines in their mysterious haven in a deep gorge. Leaping flames and billowing waves of impenetrable smoke reaching the sky were reported approaching the site from Giant Gospers Mountain. The blaze was, however, doused as the Australian government, in a sweep-operation, mobilized the NSW Park officials on time to drop fire retardant in the area and deployed choppers to winch down highly pro firefighters into the ravine to install a hydration system to provide ample moisture to the trees to fight off the scorching heat. As the news about the safety of the iconic species traveled across, the anxious Australians sighed in relief. And, when in March 1999, the news broke out that the Queensland Forestry Research Institutes and Birkdale Nursery were going to propagate Wollemi pine commercially for sale to the public, it created an uproar in Australia. Soon, every Aussie household could have their cherished plant in their garden, patio, balcony, verandah, and backyard. Today, the potted Wollemi saplings get marketed internationally, and in New South Wales, Australia, it is priced at Aud $50. The first limited release of Wollemi pines was auctioned at Sotheby’s in New York for a whopping Aud $3,600 plus. The park curators maintained that should the legendary species perish, someday in the wild, it will live on across the globe, leastways to adorn people's gardens and homes—and thus save the prehistoric species perpetually from becoming extinct. The phenomenal scheme taken up by the Australian government bulwarked the legacy of the dinosaur trees. [email protected]

A few weeks back, on a Saturday, I was at the Bajrabarahi shrine—a 12th-century Hindu temple dedicated to the avatar of Goddess Asta Matrika with the head of a sow, Varaha (barahi in Nepali)—bajra stands for a legendary weapon of thunderbolt, or lightning. The sacred site is just eight kilometers southeast of Lagankhel, Lalitpur. Other notable Barahi temples include Nilbarahi (Bhaktapur), Dhumbarahi, Shwet Barahi (Bade Gaun, Lalitpur), and Tal Barahi (Pokhara). What characterizes the two-tiered pagoda-style structure is the lack of a Gajur (spire) or pinnacle, quotidian with the architecture of nearly all temples of Kathmandu. And what strikes visitors most is the dense forest, close to 18.5 hectares, which hugs the shrine around. An idyllic setting for birdies, ornithologists, and dendrologists, the forest is home to a wealth of flora and vertebrates—29 species of birds and as many genera of trees, including flowers. A legend board hung right at the entrance classifies in detail the species of birds and the flora for the ease of the respective buffs. For bird watchers, weekdays are best suited as weekends are bustling and noisy. Ours was a family picnic following a long hiatus. Not just my nuclear family, though. It was a large gathering of extended family members—the Singhs from the Newar town of Dolakha, some 135 km northeast of Kathmandu. Redolent of a family tree, the cluster included brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, and what have you. The getaway organized each Nepali New Year at Bajrabarahi, initiated almost 15 years now, targeted at congregating the scattered members of the Singh kinsfolk residing in Kathmandu to spend time together and share thoughts amidst cheerful bonhomie and that feel-good vibe. Past traumatic happenings die hard in our minds; nothing could be more life-like. The moment I stepped into the shrine's entrance, old memories of the incident eight years ago rushed back, and I shuddered intuitively. The annual outing of the Singhs abruptly came to a grinding halt on the sinister day when the devastating earthquake of 7.8 on the Richter scale struck the country at 11:56 on Baisakh 12, 2072 (25 April 2015), a Saturday. Guess what! We all were at the shrine for the picnic when the petrifying quake took place, and, needless to write, utter pandemonium broke out. Shell-shocked, we felt desperate, vulnerable, and defenseless. The picnic turned into absolute shambles. And so was the entire premises crawling with the picnickers as everyone in panic was scurrying around helter-skelter to find a safe shelter, frantically trying to help their kith and kin and save their dear lives. Outright chaos! It looked, albeit still reeling under the shock, the country seemed destined to further dire circumstances as India imposed an over 5-month-long Nepal blockade, crippling daily life. Before long, the Covid-19 pandemic followed, causing abject misery for the Nepali people, which took an uglier turn, triggering panic, untold tribulations, life-threatening situations, and even loss of lives. With frequent lockdowns, life seemed to come to a standstill. And our annual picnics slipped into dormancy for eight long years. This year, the outing went well, and the turnout was quite a surprise, 50 family members, including the kids. Given the warm and cheerful ambiance, everyone looked like they had missed out on the yearly weekend hangouts—for ages. I was in for a surprise this time, though. First, the shrine premises looked mighty tidier. My eyes combed through the site, the paved path, the nook-and-crannies, the spots allocated for picnics, and the vicinity for filth and rubbish, mainly empty plastic bottles, plastic bags, and the like—but there seemed hardly any. “Wow, how come?” I asked myself. Did the management of the shrine minister do that? Or should I take it for granted that the Kathmanduuite citizenry has taken a turn for the better from littering public places and recreation parks? Highly unlikely! If you care to observe all getaway spots people frequent at weekends in the outskirts of the valley, the trash strewn around speaks volumes. That reminds me of a friend who is an avid bike-packer and loves camping. On every trip, he ensures he collects his trash to dispose of at a proper garbage dump. And, what is more, he rounds off scraps and junk bestrewn by others, too. Unbelievable! As our group unwound themselves, some in a game of cards, others chatting, and a few just hanging around, I strolled along the paved path through the beautiful forest surrounding the temple. Albeit, the blaring loudspeakers belonging to the picnickers belted out a cacophony of music, playing havoc to the serenity of the woods, the intermittent lusty calls of the koel (cuckoo), the chattering of the parakeets, the red-vented Bulbuls, black drongos, the common mynas and a few others could not be mistaken a little in the far reaches. It struck me then something was missing, though. Suddenly, it flashed across my mind—primates or monkeys! The Bajrabarahi temple premises and the surrounding woods are home to troops of those arboreal anthropoids. I saw none. Weird! My curiosity drew me deep into the woods on the single tracks but a cropper—not one of those critters crossed my path. In my haste to retreat, I slipped on the tinder-dry leaves and landed on my butt—nothing to fret about, however. Back at the temple premises, I stopped to talk to an elderly lady selling puja trappings about the mysterious disappearance of monkeys. "Well, a week back, a Srimad Bhagavat Katha Saptah (a week-long puja ceremony) was staged at the temple. From that day on, the monkeys, unawares, vanished from the entire shrine premises and the woods, but they'll be back soon," she said. Most likely, the blaring loudspeakers all over the environs and the hordes of devotees milling around the entire area had scared them off—I mused. But where did they go to take refuge? I wondered as I rejoined my kinfolks. [email protected]

Traveling the length and breadth of Nepal—from Mechi to Mahakali, over 1,700 km bridging the two hindmost frontiers along the rambling Terai plains by pedal power may sound offbeat to most. It did not, to Binita Jirel (26) and Khashing Chandra Rai (31). Instead, the brainchild was Binita's perspective of exploring the vast plains—her childhood fascination. To her, a Jirel (an indigenous community of Jiri), born and raised in the hill town, she never had the opportunity to visit the Terai plains. After nearly a fortnight-long brain-racking—scheduling and rescheduling, working and reworking meticulously on the itinerary, the duo shook hands on kicking off the epic journey in January 2020—the trip set in stone. The only thing that bothered them was the thought of the bustling Mahendra Highway with heavy vehicles boring down at breakneck speed, the toxic emissions, and fewer opportunities to observe and explore the authentic Terai and its rural life minutely. And voilà! Following a little brainstorming, Khashing made an exciting discovery—the Hulaki Raj Marga (the Postman Highway)–the trail trodden by mail carriers before the motor roadways came to the Terai (including the Mahendra Highway in 1956), thus, linking untold villages and rural towns in the humongous plains. During the Rana regime (1846-1951), the road also supported transferring mail from India to Kathmandu. The big day arrived, and the adventurous duo, their bicycles stowed and secured on the bus roof, left for Birtamod, Jhapa, their kick-off point for their 30-day journey on wheels. After a hectic off-loading of their bikes at Birtamod and a little layoff at a crummy teashop, they gave a spin to their wheels—their layover at Bhadrapur, 20km away. “Here we come,” called out an ecstatic Binita to her childhood fantasy—the Tarai, in the flesh, right before her eyes. As they left behind the clutter of the town behind, the countryside stretched out in all its glory. The vast swathe of farmland welcomed them with lush amber mustard, vegetables, sugarcane patches, and the young wheat's green. The road cut across scanty houses, and as many shops stood on the sides—the rest, open cultivated land. Shortly before dark, they reached Bhadrapur and checked into a roadside hotel. Binita and Khashing woke up the next day to a clement Tarai morning. After the nipping January chill of Kathmandu, the weather felt promising—no need to heap on layers like back home. And then, Khashing’s old friend from Birtamod, Akash, turned up on his bicycle. Lo behold, he had three other cyclists in tow. The group would tag along with the duo to Mechi Bridge. After that, Binita and Khashing would be on their own. After gorging on a typical Tarai nasta (breakfast): golden-crisp jalebis, puris (puffed-up wheat-flour bread deep-fried in oil), alu-sabji (potato curry), and sweet chai (tea), the rider gang hit the road. Binita seemed to absorb every detail—skipping nothing, the sight, the sound, and even the smell of Terai. And every time they stopped by a settlement or shanty town, heads turned, and a curious crowd gathered to watch unbelievingly at the helmet-clad woman on a bicycle. There was no mistaking the Terai hallmark—the robust odor of burning dead leaves and dung cakes, followed by a strange pungent aroma. “That’s the sugarcane molasses,” Akash said. Clusters of tiny farmsteads, mango groves, the evergreen Jamun, and coconut trees dotted the distant fields. Bunched-up settlements: ramshackle mud-and-thatch huts, improved brick houses, and makeshift lean-to shelters serving as shops and tea houses flanked the road. Binita seemed over the moon as the bunch moved on. Bullock carts, piled high with straw stalks, trundled past, tractors plowed the fields, distant chimneys belched out columns of smoke, women went about their ways with loads balanced on their heads, and every so often, men, women, and girls alike pedaled along on their conventional bicycles. The kids had their way of cheering themselves up by noisily running along their bikes. But what kept striking the duo was the constant presence of thick forest as backdrops at the far end of the fields. Was that a keepsake reminder the entire inhabitation once stood as an impenetrable forest (Char Kose Jhadi)? Close to two hours, the group arrived at the legendary Mechi Bridge. The bridge shares Nepal’s border with Bihar state (Galgalia) in the south and West Bengal in the north. Following a photo shoot and a brief respite, they resumed their pedaling. Aakash suddenly said they would soon be spinning along the historic Hulaki Rajmarga. From then on, the duo would follow that highway until the end of their journey. “But before that, we’ll stop by a one-of-a-kind spot,” he said to the curious group. After an hour, a settlement called Kechan Kawal approached a nondescript village town boasting a spot in Nepal with the lowest elevation from sea level. To the adventurous pair, it sounded exciting. In a half-hour, they arrived at the spot—a vast swathe of barren land where sat a massive concrete platform shaped into a fish; at the head, a pillar stood on the carapace of a turtle effigy at the base. The sight would make any living soul scratch their head in awe, mused Khashing. “Previously, only the column stood there as a landmark. It's been only a few months since its erection to mark the 2020 Tourism Year,” he explained. Previously, a government survey had declared Kechana Kawal, Jhapa, as the zero-level point in Nepal at 60 meters above mean sea level. However, following a new survey in 2017, it lost its title to Mukhiyapatti Musharniya (59m) of the Dhanusha district. After hanging around for a spell followed by a group photo and that feel-good, easy-breezy vibe confabulating with the energetic foursome cyclists from Jhapa, it was time for Khashing and Binita to part ways. Akash offered to ride a little further with the duo. Shortly, he stopped at an intersection. "Buddies, we have already set foot on the classic Hulaki Rajmarga," said Akash. The Hulaki Rajmarga (1,792 km) commences from Kitchen Kawal, Jhapa district, and culminates at Dodhara, Kanchanpur, West Nepal. The Rajmarga was initiated by the 15th Rana Prime Minister Juddha Shumsher JBR ((1932 to 1945), the builder-of-Dharara-fame. Padma. Shumsher JBR (1945 to 1948) proceeded with the follow-up work. The first-ever path connected 20 Districts and traversed across the length and breadth of the Great Plains and the verdant rainforests of Nepal. The concept was to boost the livelihood of the Terai people and tie the far-flung villages together. The Hulaki RajMarg hogged the headlines when a chain of thousands-strong Terai people formed a human chain from Mechi to Mahakali along the Postal Highway as part of the Madhesi agitation against the 2-month-long India implemented Nepal Blockade in 2015, five months following the devastating Earthquake. “And strange as it may sound, the initiation of the Hulaki Rajmarga coincided with the year the World rocked as a US B-29 aircraft dropped the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9, 1945), killing almost 199,000 people,” Akash said and bid farewell to the intrepid duo. [email protected]

Following my craze for angling and having taken a crack at Sun Koshi, Tama Koshi, Tamur, and Arun in east Nepal, way back in 2010, I set my sights on the formidable Karnali River in far-west Nepal—my first ever to the mighty river. Karnali outstrips other significant rivers in Nepal as the longest (507 km), fed by the glacial waters of the sacred Mount Kailash in southwestern Tibet. The massive river then cuts across the Chure hills (the Siwalik range) to our great Terai plains and into India as Ghagra. The big day arrived, and I finally set off solo to Nepalgunj, a 55-minute flight from Kathmandu, with an array of fishing rods, a bag crammed with tackle—and soaring expectations, in quest of the most coveted gamefish, Golden Mahseer. I planned to set my base in Thakurdwara, Bardiya National Park, and try my luck fishing the Babai River first. The ultimate assault would be the magnificent Karnali at Chisapani. Following a filling lunch of dal-bhat at my friend Ashok's, he drove me in his pick-up truck to Thakurdwara, 75 km from Nepalgunj, on the Mahendra East-West Highway. He suggested I take his motorbike along, as hired vehicles in Thakurdwara were cumbersome to find and expensive. I jumped at his offer. My heart sank when I looked at the bike. “No worries, Ravi. Don’t go for its shabby look. It works just fine and won't let you down,” he said. With the bike hoisted aboard the pick-up, we drove off. After Man Khola (river), we left Banke District behind and entered Bardiya District. Shortly, dense mixed hardwood forest with towering Sal trees converged on both sides. Before long, we were motoring down the Bardiya National Park territory. Next, we took a fork at a roadside shanty town called Ambassa and, navigating past a bucking ride on a dirt road, arrived at Thakurdwara, a sleepy town those days. The BJC (Bardia Jungle Cottage), I checked in, was just a stone’s throw away from the Bardia National Park entrance.The quaint resort featured small mud, thatch, and bamboo cottages with cool and cozy rooms. “No cement, not a single brick was used to build them and the design is exclusively a Tharu (an indigenous ethnic community) concept,” said Khadka, the owner; thatch grass (khar) completed the roofs. Following some refreshments, my friend soon left for Nepalgunj, and I enjoyed the temperate evening, helped by a breeze in the delightful garden chatting with Mr. Khadka. Despite a restless night, with nocturnal nightjars calling out their spooky chuk, chuk, I got up early the next morning for the day's angling. I left for the Babai River with my guide Sitaram Chaudhary, a local Tharu, riding pillion on the motorbike. The highway appeared near-deserted save for a bus or a truck roaring past. We zoomed past flitting sightings of langur monkeys and an occasional herd of chital deer by the wooded roadside. At one spot, a peafowl frightened the living daylights out of me as it tore across the road to cross—too close for comfort. After a one-half hour, we arrived at the Babai River bridge. I peered down the bridge, which also served as an irrigation weir, and to my excitement, spotted a gharial and a mugger crocodile lazing on the river’s sandy banks. The next sight made my mind boggle. A huge gharial with gaping jaws stalked patiently on a school of tiny fish. The fishlings were bounding over the incline of the sluice gate, trying futilely to slither up the slippery slope, only to drop back into the water—and some unfortunate ones into the gaping jaws. Whoa, an ingenious gimmick! We parked the bike at the park gate and walked along a forest path through thick woods with tall grasses and shrubs. The jungle was still except for the rustling sound that our feet made on dry fallen leaves. A shrill note of a peafowl sounded nearby, followed by others in a chorus. Then a spooked chital stag belled close at hand. After a half hour, we descended to the river, our fishing spot for the day. I lost no time and cast my first rod baited with a live small fish Choudhary had netted by the banks and let the rod rest. With a second rod, I began my cast- and-retrieve with a metal lure. With no shade, the day turned scorching with stifling heat as the sun bore down on us relentlessly, but regardless, I kept hurling my lure like clockwork. At two in the afternoon, Choudhary reminded me we had to have lunch. Starved, as we munched on our packed lunch of egg-fried rice and cucumber salad, I kept a wary eye on the tip of my first rod, on my toes to pounce at the slightest jiggle. After lunch, I renewed my casts as the baited rod languished—no bite. After five o’clock, as the shadows lengthened, I began to waver. Time was slipping away as park rules allowed us to remain only until sunset. Even Chaudhary looked baffled at the total blankness. At six, with the sun almost skimming the distant Babai waters, we called it a day and retreated through the forest to our parked motorbike. Albeit the sun was down, visibility remained in the gloaming. After cruising past a military check post, at Sainabar, I saw something from the corner of my eye hanging out at the forested roadside. Curious, I made a U-turn to check. My hunch came true. There stood the crowning glory of the jungle—wild elephants. The herd of 12 to 13 tuskers were foraging right next to the highway in a small clearing barely 30 ft. away. As elephant encounters are rare in the wild, I was thrilled to bits at the prospect of taking some snapshots at such close quarters. With the engine killed and both riders still straddled over the seat, I lunged for my camera slung over my back. Just then, my guide Sitaram Choudhary seated behind, fidgeted, and I lost my footing before I could train my lenses on the herd. The bike pitched and slid down to one side, but I held on with one foot from toppling over and heaved it straight up. Seeing us dawdle at the roadside so close, I noted some commotion amidst the herd. Then Sitaram panicked. “Sir, we best not stop here . . . it’s not safe at all. They can attack any moment; if they do, we have a fat chance of escaping,” he muttered into my ears. Guess what! As I hurriedly took a couple of shaky shots, the Alpha male, its ears pinned back, charged, and the rest of the herd followed suit. That triggered the warning bell in my head. I frantically kicked the starter pedal. Holy smoke! It failed! With my heart in my mouth, I furiously tried again—and thank heavens—on my third attempt, the engine sprang to life, and we shot forward, hell for leather. At some distance, I turned my head back to look. The storming tuskers had stopped after chasing us several paces but kept eyeing us suspiciously. Back at the lodge in Thakurdwara, my guide Sitaram without beating about the bush, said, “Sir, I was all set to ditch you and dash for the thick woods—the only way to flee when chased by wild elephants, had you stalled a little longer.” [email protected]  

My wife and I were having lunch at a friend's some eight years back. The entrée, the usual dal-bhat, with side servings of a mutton dish, cauliflower curry, and chutneys, included a simple spinach preparation.   It was, however, nothing like the typical green leafy vegetables we ate at home, like mustard greens (tori ko sag), garden cress (chamsur), spinach (palungo), fenugreek leaves, or bok choy. It had a marked flavor, somewhere close to our palungo spinach and even a hint of cabbage, but with a sharper, piquant, and earthy flavor. I relished it so much that I went for a large second helping. I did not have the foggiest idea what it was. Upon my curiosity, my friend told me it was bethe ko sag, popular among rural Newars and called ekoncha in Newari. My jaws dropped when he told me it was a wild weed that grew independently and proliferated home gardens, wheat fields, potato crops, fallow fields, and roadsides—free for the picking. That made me a little suspicious about the edibility of the spinach.  Discerning the quizzical look on my face, my friend grinned and assured me it was safe to eat. "No worries, it even holds some medicinal properties," he said. I did not buy it and decided to investigate the matter. It bowled me over when my finds reassured me it was not merely safe to eat, but the wild weed packed a lot of nutrients. The more I buried into my research, the more exciting lowdowns surfaced. Given that the wild herbage thus became a favorite on my shopping list.  History logs that the wild weed existed even in the prehistoric ages when hunters and gatherers foraged this green leafy plant in the backwoods to eat and use as fodder. The botanic name for this weed is Chenopodium Album, a perennial, annual herbaceous plant—a member of the Amaranthaceous family (in the genus Chenopodium). It is fast-growing, resilient, and survives extreme sun, drought, and frost. In Kathmandu, it invades the wheat fields, potato crops, soybean, home gardens, and untilled fields, and being very hardy needs no tending. In a nutshell, mostly neglected, it clusters practically any location, niche, and crevice outdoors. All you have to have is observant eyes.  By and broadly accepted as a pesky nuisance in the garden, it thrives in a temperate and tropical climate. Given that a single bethe plant bears an astronomical quantity of self-sowing seeds, close to 70,000, if not more, it burgeons just like a bushfire.  Botanists claim it served as a food source even in the ancient Chinese civilization and maintained that it was native to Asia and Europe and later introduced to North America, Africa, and Australia. Albeit its wild descent, the plant is cultivated extensively as a food crop in India, particularly in the north, and widely consumed. And what's more, it goes by a horde of names in America and Europe, which sound nothing short of ludicrous such as lamb's quarters, white goosefoot, Missouri lambs quarters, bacon weed, pigweed, and whatnot.  "There are two variety of bethe, one is the local kind and the other deshi (literally from the Terai or India))," says Naren Shrsestha, our greengrocer. "Its seedling time nearly coincides with the planting of palungo spinach. The picking time for the local bethe sag occurs in early spring (March through May) before the wheat crop gets harvested or a little late until mid-fall," he added. The local bethe available in Kathmandu are primarily wild and foraged in the wheat fields and the spring potato crops. "With its growing popularity, farmers in small numbers have started cultivating it in recent times," says Ramchandra, a vegetable vendor in our neighborhood.  Now for the fast check on bethe's nutrients, let's look at the fact sheet below. For good measure, the invasive weed brims over with micronutrients such as potassium,  phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, zinc, flavonoids, and Vitamin K. It is rich in Vitamin C. Surprisingly, the wild weed loads Vitamin A (11,600 IU per 100 grams of leaves) much higher than spinach and about 2.5 times more than kale.  Regarding the health benefits accredited nutritionists and clinical dietitians uphold, the lesser-known bethe greens boost our immunity and help nourish our overall wellness.   Among a wealth of health benefits, let's check on some: 

1. With calcium content to back it up, it helps strengthen our bones and fight against osteoporosis, structural deterioration of bone tissue, and low bone mass (especially among aging women).
2. The flavonoids and copper contents in bethe, essential for a healthy heart, foster the HDL cholesterol, thus, substantially cutting down on the risk of cardiovascular diseases like heart attacks, atherosclerosis, and strokes.  
3. As an excellent glycemic agent, the manganese in bethe greens aids in controlling and stabilizing blood-glucose levels in type-2 diabetes.
4. It fights against toxins in our body caused by prolonged consumption of fruits and veggies contaminated by pesticides and extended use of pharmaceutical drugs like acetaminophen and ibuprofen. It acts as a cleansing agent and helps safeguard the liver. 

1. Recent discoveries maintain the regular intake of bethe even check the growth of cancer cells in breasts, lungs, colon, and esophagus.

Nearly everyone falls prey to constipation at one time or another—more so when it comes to elderly individuals. People generally believe that if you are afflicted with constipation, you must give a wide berth to eating bananas.  As much as it is a delicious and healthy fruit loved by all, it has long become the focus of speculation and debate concerning constipation, a common gastrointestinal complaint. My wife never eats bananas because she has constipation. She believes bananas aggravate the problem, as did most people I talked with. I still recall the old days when my mom gave us kids bananas to eat when we had diarrhea, saying it worked wonders to stop loose bowels. Nevertheless, a nonagenarian, she eats half a banana each day. Although I'm a diabetic, I eat one banana every morning for breakfast. While on cycling rides, I indulge myself with two as it works like an energy booster when doing grueling inclines. It has been like this since I got into cycling for 15 years. That has never interfered with my bowel movements to this day. My daily regimen starts with guzzling down nearly a liter of water on an empty stomach—first thing in the morning, followed by a refreshing mugful of tea. Before you know it, I have to dash for the washroom. It stays that way every day, ruling out rare exceptions like when visiting new environments, a filthy bathroom, and while traveling—worst of all, if I have to use an archaic squat toilet instead of a commode.   My wife knows I never have a problem with constipation, but trying to convince her that bananas would not add to her problem always leads to a stalemate.   She instead goes for a heap of laxatives, stool softeners, and whatnot, ayurvedic antidotes, too, into the bargain—and that goes every day. It works for her most days a week, but the irony of it all, the motley medications do not work as a perfect remedy.  It was time I dug into this issue and got to the roots. Ta-da! My little research debunked the near folk myth that eating bananas aggravated the problem but helped those suffering from it—poop. It was nothing less than an eye-opener and a plausible answer to my wife's misconception.  In a nutshell, constipation is a condition that leads to fewer than three bowel movements a week with hard, dry, or lumpy stools that are difficult and, at times, painful to pass, landing you feeling not all stool has passed through the rectum. My research led me to the finding that constipation is a health disorder affecting almost 20 percent of the world's population.  To go by medically-backed findings, the primary causes of constipation include your eating habit and lifestyle. You will likely get constipated if your food needs more fiber, like leafy greens, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, or in the event, high-fat meals, such as meat, junk food, or processed food, outpace your dietary regimen.   Next, your daily intake of fluids needs to be improved, which can also precipitate in harder stools, stubborn from passing usually. Our body needs enough fluids to keep it functional, and science backs the theory. You won't believe it! A whopping 67 percent of water makes up for our bodies.  Or, you are less involved in physical activity. Health experts maintain regular workouts contribute to more than toning up the heart and the body muscles; it also boosts regular bowel movements. Now, the knotty question pops up, what makes bananas bowel-friendly and helps alleviate the severity of constipation? Fiber-rich food is essential to keep you in excellent overall trim, including better gut health or microbiota. Consuming adequate fiber can prevent or relieve constipation, aiding waste to move smoothly through the body. It also encourages healthy gut microbiota. Medical and health reviews claim dietary fiber enhances the bulk of stool, helps promote regular bowel movements, and cuts down on body wastes lodged in the intestines helping against gastrointestinal disorders.  That said, what makes bananas functional in alleviating constipation, and even work as a prophylactic against it and relieve those suffering from this miserable condition?  For a start, bananas pack both soluble and insoluble fiber. While insoluble fiber contributes to bulk, spurring bowel activity, soluble fiber absorbs water, helping stools stay large but soft, complementing the movement of waste through your digestive tract. Many plant foods, such as fruits, broccoli, carrots, oats, and beans, fall under this category.  There is more, the nutrient-dense bananas are a source of vitamin B6, potassium, magnesium, vitamin C, A, and over three times as much phosphorus and iron as apples, all contributing to a healthy heart, stronger bones, and help keep your cholesterol and BP in check and cuts down on the risk of stroke—the checklist seems still an arm long.  Good news for diabetics! As maintained by the American Diabetes Association, the fiber in bananas counterbalances blood glucose at a safe level. Even diabetics can go for a modest single banana a day. Touted as a ‘superfood’ at the turn of the 20th century, it also gathered a lustrous endorsement from the journal of the American Medical Association.  That said, bananas are not unfavorable to constipation; they act instead as a close ally to mitigating the setback. Hopefully, this write-up will rid my wife of the long-harbored fallacy and go for bananas—haha! The above content provides generic information based on research. It is in no way a substitute for a qualified medical opinion. Always consult a specialist or your doctor for further details [email protected]

Looked upon as a mystical Shangri-La and dubbed the "Little Tibet," the enchanting tiny enclave hidden within the folds of majestic mountains on the Tibetan Plateau, the 500-year-old capital of Mustang, "the Kingdom of Lo"–Lo Manthang–was off limits to foreigners until 1992. For old folks, Mustang was a fabled "himal pari ko desh," a land beyond the Himalayas. In 2018, I traveled to Lo Manthang (3,840m), Upper Mustang, on a 13-day cycling trip with three companions and turned my long-cherished dream into reality. It stood out hands down as the most memorable journey of my life—one of a kind. Among many other breathtaking landmarks, the mysterious 2,500-old Shija Jhong cave at Chosser village boggled our minds. Following a two-day respite and a thorough tour of the walled city of Lo Manthang, including its medieval gompas (monasteries) and the 14th-century Tashi Gephel Palace (undergoing renovation then), we wished to make our last day worth the effort by exploring a little farther the city. We set aside two destinations: the Korala border with China, some 28 km away, and the closer Chosser Jhong Cave. Our team captain, Khashing Rai, and I favored the historic cave; my other two mates, Shayeet and Diwas, were for the border. After a bit of bickering, we finally settled upon Jhong cave. After gorging on dal-bhat at the hotel, we dusted our bicycles, hopped into our saddles, and hit the dirt road to Chosser (3,916m), some 19km away. It took us over an hour to arrive at Chosser—clusters of adobe houses scattered around a close-knit community. The wind that escalated into a full-blown gale made our pedaling an ordeal. We left our bikes at the village square tea shop and hiked to the cave. The landscape of Mustang never ceased to baffle us right from day one. On the way to the cave, the weird rock formations in phenomenal sizes and shapes in the bare, parched, dusty, wind-ravaged, and arid terrain gave us the impression of having landed on a different planet—so other-worldly. For all that, the charm the rugged environs held for us was mystifying. As we advanced toward our destination, November’s biting wind seemed bent upon brutally lashing us. The chill seemed to cut through the layers of our thermal wear and windbreakers to our bones. Small wonder Mustang earns the notoriety of diurnal gale force gust with speeds outstripping 40 knots. You won't believe it! At the wind-torn Nyi La pass (4,020m), the highest point en route to Lo Manthang, the wind threatened to sweep my bike off a cliff. Following a 45-minute walk in that stark wilderness with no such things as greenery and habitation, we arrived at Jhong cave that towered above us—defined against the clear indigo sky. All four of us froze to the ground as we watched the massive rock formation in all its glory—the spectacle as much for the eyes as for the mind. The near vertical face of the craggy cliff held pockmarks, which we soon figured were gaping holes, presumably serving as crude windows for a light source. Awestruck, we set foot on the monumental Shija Jhong Cave, just one among over 10,000 human-made caves that pepper the cliffs of Mustang, near-impossible to access. A concrete flight of steps led to the cave's entrance. Next, we had to climb narrow wooden ladders to the upper stories. Each landing opened into passages and multiple chambers. The ladders kept going up to a soaring fifth story. As the rickety ladder shook and wobbled, I stomached my fear and climbed to the fifth floor. Exceeding 40 chambers, some needed access through narrow tunnel-like entrances and stooping too; we negotiated past them cautiously, as there were gaping pits too. One false step, and you would take a fall to the lower story. Several chambers had crude tanks and bins hued into the walls, probably to store water and grain; others appeared like sleeping quarters. Several chambers held ceilings blackened by soot; they must have served as kitchens. How on earth those middle-era people, against all odds, dug caves into sheer rock faces is nothing short of an enigma yet unraveled. Undeniably, the Jhong cave is a living testimony to the phenomenon that the ancient people of Lo lived in caves for millennia. Nearly every chamber had a gaping opening that opened to a stunning view of the rugged wind-sculpted landscape and the Chosser valley in the distance. With no head for heights, it gave me the creeps, even peering from the fifth floor's hole. The presence of thousands of human-made sky caves chiseled into Mustang's near vertical sedimentary cliffs substantiates that cave civilization was inseparable from its past. "People still live in some caves around Garphu and Chosser," said Wangchhen Lowa, the owner of the Mystique Hotel in Lo Manthang. Besides being used as living quarters, archaeologists speculate people used the cave shelters for diverse purposes, from burial grounds for the deceased to meditation chambers for the monks, a refuge from enemy aggression, storing grains, and battle lookout posts. Caves such as the Luri and Tashi Kabum house mural paintings—believe it or not—even mummified human remains and stupas. Today, the Jhong cave and the rest of the sky caves remain a Chinese puzzle for the stumped archaeologists, inviting many hypotheses. As it is, those dark caves of Mustang, to this day, remain shrouded in profound mystery and intrigue. [email protected]