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The Boogie Woogie pro­duction team had to work mighty hard to make this first-of-its-kind show in Nepal a success.

“Dance reality shows are comparatively more chal­lenging than other reality shows,” says Aleen Shres­tha, the director of Boogie Woogie. “We have to take care of every small aspect, from matching make-up with dress to stage props.” Shrestha describes his expe­rience of producing the first Boogie Woogie show as bit of a ‘mixed bag’.

“No one had tried this in Nepal before. So, we made mistakes but at the same time we also learned so much in the process,” says Suresh Paudel, proj­ect head for Boogie Woogie. “It was also a process that gave us Kabita Nepali, the deserved winner.”

On the day of the grand finale itself, Nepali, along with two other finalists, stood on the stage with great anticipation, and dread, their hearts thump­ing against their chests. With only moments left for the final announcement she started preparing herself for the worst. “I kept tell­ing myself whatever hap­pens will happen for the good,” says Nepali. “I wasn’t expecting to win. In fact, I was willing to settle for the third runners-up prize.”

Growing up, Nepali learnt early to move her body to the rhythm of music. Her parents would play songs on television for her to dance. So passionate was she that once, as a toddler, she broke the television screen at home, trying to get inside the screen to dance. Her parents, who were not home at the time, found her dancing with half of her body inside the television when they got home.

Even though she was fond of dancing, the art form was only a medium for her to express her inner feelings till she came across the Boogie Woogie audition announcement. She was instantly hooked but her parents were not convinced.

“Our society still frowns upon a woman choosing dancing as her career,” says Nepali. “So, at first my fam­ily did not approve of my decision to participate and I had to convince them to let me pursue my dream.”

The self-taught Nepali feels her versatility helped her progress in the competition and says the eight-month-journey of Boogie Woogie was a learn­ing curve she will forever remember. “Day or night, my focus was only on danc­ing. I even used to dream about dancing,” she says. “In the competition itself, it was all about hard work. I had many injuries but the Boogie Woogie team took care of them. The good part is that I got to learn many dance forms that I had seen only on television.”

As the grand finale night progressed and nervousness filled the air, Nepali felt her rationale for competing in Boogie Woogie had already been justified. “For me it wasn’t about winning. I came here to learn,” she says. Nepali spent the whole finale evening preparing for the worst and when she heard her name announced as the winner, she was shocked. “My mind went blank,” says Nepali. “I didn’t know how to react.” Nepali had won the competition by getting 30 percent more votes compared to the first runners-up in SMS voting.

Nepali bagged Rs 2.5 mil­lion in cash with which she wants to build a home for her family. And now that she has won the competition, she also wants to get back to studying and completing her high-school, from which she had to drop out because of the show. “I will first complete my studies and will then explore my career in the film industry,” says Nepali. “Until then, I will be doing programs and music videos for pocket money,” she smiles.

Photos by Pritam Chhetri

The fifth edition of The Anna­purna Post International Cor­porate Badminton (ICB) held between July 23 and 28 was widely held as a big success. There were a total of 85 games, with 422 national and international players compet­ing in 10 categories: men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles, under-19 junior men and junior women singles, men’s executive singles and dou­bles, and finally men’s corporate singles and doubles. Besides the players from Nepal there were also participants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and East Timor. In term of prize money, this is the biggest badminton tourna­ment in Nepal, with more than Rs 2 million worth of prizes.

In the case of the Nepali players, for the final competition in Kathmandu the organizers had conducted six state-level selec­tion events, with only the winners and the runner-ups progressing. The covered hall of the Nation­al Sports Council, Tripureshwor hosted the finals.

“There is no doubt that this com­petition has raised the level of the game in Nepal. It will be of great benefit for our national and regional players in the long run,” says Sudam Sijapati, Head of Human Resources, Annapurna Media Network. “With players coming from different coun­tries, it has also helped boost sports tourism in Nepal,” he adds.

In this context, APEX talked to the winners of men’s singles and women’s singles, Dipesh Dhami and Mahoor Shahzed respectively, each of whom won 23.33 grams of gold.

Mahoor Shahzed

The 21-year-old Mahoor Shahzed from Pakistan first held the badmin­ton racket when she was only 12. Her father, who played in National Junior level, is her biggest influence. “He trained me and made me play with other kids,” says Shahzed. “Later, he even hired a coach.”

Groomed by her father and her coach, Shahzed found success at a very young age. At 13, she won her first title—the under-19 National Level Badminton Competition held in Pakistan. “It encouraged me and my family. From then, my family motivated me to be more passion­ate about the game,” says Shahzed. “They wanted me to be a world-class badminton player.” Training then became a habit for her and Shahzed is now one of the top ranked players in Pakistan.

She enjoys engaging in long rallies, as she believes stamina is her real strength. Even though she has an attacking mindset, she rarely likes to unleash a smash. “I only smash if I can kill a point,” says Shahzed.

Shahzed’s first visit to Nepal in 2016 wasn’t fruitful. She had failed to win the International Badmin­ton Series organized by Nepal Bad­minton Association. As she aims to represent Pakistan in the 2020 Olympics, she has shifted all her focus to badminton. Recently, after completing her Bachelors degree, she decided to leave her studies for a while. “I need to prepare for the Olympics. For this I need to play many games and in many tourna­ments,” says Shahzed.

In the ICB this time, only one opponent managed to score 15 points against her in a set. Shahzed says she didn’t feel any pressure in any of the matches she played.

Dipesh Dhami

Born in 1997, Nepal APF Club shut­tler Dipesh Dhami was committed to badminton at a very young age. Currently in his early 20s, Dhami already has incredible credentials. As of now, many regard him as an experienced player who has firmly established himself in the Nepali national team.

In 2017, Dhami teamed up with Shova Gauchan, and the duo won the mixed doubles title at the Yonex Sunrise Pakistan Interna­tional Series in Islamabad. In the same year, Dhami became the lone Nepali player to reach the men’s singles quarter-finals of the Nepal International Series. For his achieve­ments, Nepal Sports Journalists Forum nominated Dhami in the male category for the Pulsar Sports Award in 2018.

Dhami is a regular at international and national Badminton competi­tions. In the ICB men’s singles finals, he defeated his opponent with an astonishing score line of 21-11, 21-10.

“I felt very comfortable because the opponent was making many mistakes,” says Dhami. “When I saw him repeat his mistakes, I took full advantage.” The win brought Dhami his second men’s singles title in ICB, the first being in the tournament’s first edition.

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When we hear the word “nurse”, we think of a wom­an with an apron, mainly because the nursing profession in Nepal has been the exclusive preserve of females. But then the country does have a history of male nurses. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) under Tribhuvan University trained four batches of male nurs­es between 1986 and 1993, during which time almost 80 male nurses were produced.The enrolment of male nurses was terminated for two main rea­sons. One, it was a new profession for males and people were uncom­fortable. “The patients would not accept male nurses. They start­ed complaining about not getting proper as they would from female nurses,” says Tara Pokhrel, Presi­dent of the Nursing Association of Nepal (NAN), the umbrella body for nurses in Nepal.

“This made our jobs tough,” says Ratna Guragain, a male nurse from the first batch at the IOM. Guragain would serve as a professional nurse for 20 years before his retirement.

The other reason for the termi­nation of male enrolment was that the trained male nurses refused to serve in rural areas as they were expected to do.

So male nursing is not a com­pletely new concept in Nepal. And on June 19, Nepal Nursing Council (NNC), the main nurs­ing regulatory body in the country, once again decided to enroll male students in nursing courses starting this year in all 125 nursing colleges in Nepal. Fifteen percent seats have been reserved for male students and they will be allowed to enroll in two courses—‘Staff Nurse’ and ‘Bachelor of Science in Nursing’. If all goes according to the plan, every year 1,155 male nurses will be produced.

But what explains the NNC’s deci­sion to enroll males again, after over two- decade hiatus?

Second life

“The society has changed. Peo­ple are now more literate and understand that nursing is not an exclusive women profession. So we thought we would give it anoth­er shot,” says Goma Devi Niraula, President of NNC. “The demand is high and frankly, male nurses have become a necessity today.” The NAN played the lead role in implement­ing the decision, after almost three years of homework.

“We started to hear from Nepalis abroad that there was a huge demand for male nurses in other countries. This also made us con­sider if male nurses had become a necessity in Nepal as well,” says Pokhrel of the NAN.

There are many instances of peo­ple who have completed their Bach­elors and Masters in other streams opting to take up nursing cours­es when they went abroad. “For instance, I personally know of a doctor with an MD who left his job in Nepal to study nursing in America,” says Pokhrel.

Even though the initial enrolment for males had to be terminated par­ty because male nurses refused to serve in remote areas, Pokhrel is more hopeful this time. “The pay at remote government hospitals is good these days,” she says. She also pointed out the desperate need for male nurses during emergencies like the 2015 earthquakes.

The subtle pressure from the International Council of Nurses, a federation of over 130 nurses asso­ciation around the world including the NAN, also played a part. In fact, Nepal was the only country associ­ated with the council that did not have male nurses, and the council pressed for more gender equality.

Says Khusbu Sapkota, a profes­sional female nurse, “The inclu­sion of male nurses will make a big difference in our field. In my time in India, patients and doctors used to prefer male nurses partic­ularly in Operation Theatres and Intensive Care Units. This is because they are strongly built and can shift patients with ease during difficult medical procedures.”

According to Sapkota, many Nepali male patients also find it eas­ier to deal with male medical stuff, for instance during insertion of Foley’s catheter in the male urethra.

Challenges, old and new

Nonetheless there are many chal­lenges to male enrolment. It is pos­sible, says Pokhrel, the NAN presi­dent, the 15 percent male quota will be difficult to fill, at least initially, mainly because of lack of awareness among prospective students of the scope for male nurses. This is why the association plans many aware­ness-raising activities.

When APEX approached 50 SEE graduates this year, we found just one student who was willing to enroll in nursing. The rest said they would be embarrassed to study what was still a ‘girl’s profession’. Even Anil Thapa, the sole SEE grad­uate who intends to take up the course, says he is doing so at the instigation of his father, a medical doctor. But given a choice he would opt out. Why? “I fear being ridiculed by my friends.”

The IOM staff are, however, con­vinced that many male students will enroll as it is a job that is both financially rewarding and emotion­ally satisfying.

Other than that, there are con­cerns that male students might take this course only as a stepping stone to another health profession. “In the past, over 50 percent male nurses changed their profession, to lat­er study Bachelor Public Health or Master of Public Health,” says Pokhrel. “They wanted to serve in top positions of certain government health institutes instead of working in hospitals.”

She says she is not confident that the same thing won’t happen again and if that is the case, “there is no point in teaching nursing to male students.” Also, even though the society has progressed, Pokhrel doubts male nurses will be accepted by female patients easily as “there is a lot of physical contact in this profession, even in sen­sitive areas of the body.”

More than 81,000 nurses are currently reg­istered with the NNC, and there is an over-pro­duction of nurses every year. Income-wise, gov­ernmental hospitals offer lucrative salaries but the offerings in private hospitals are comparably low. This is why there is always the risk that the new male nurses would rather choose to go abroad rather than serve in low-paying private hospitals, or even in well-paying government ones. Just as is happen­ing with female nurses, greener pas­tures could also lure them abroad.

The idea of men studying nurs­ing is not new to Nepal, even though the concept may now appear alien. Back in 1986, the Institute of Maharajgunj decided to begin enrolling male students in its nurs­ing programs and in the four batches produced around 80 male nurses. It then stopped taking male students.

Nepali patients at the time were skeptical. They started complaining that male nurses were unable to give the quality of service that female nurses could. The idea that male nurses would be ready to go and serve in remote areas of the coun­try also proved premature. Most male nurses wanted comfortable urban postings.

Now the nursing campuses in Nepal are again starting to enroll male students starting this year. The society is changing and so are traditional gender roles. Moreover, with lucrative salaries on offer for those who want to go serve in rural areas, more male nurses will take that route. Male nurses will also be able to do more manual bits of the profession.

That, at least, is the thinking. But will the students come and will the nursing campuses be able to fill their 15 percent male seats?

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Born and brought up in Kathmandu, Brazesh Khanal wears many hats. As well-versed in penning newspaper columns as he is in acting or directing mov­ies, Brazesh, as he likes to be called, has also written two novels: ‘Yayawar’ and ‘Juneli’. All his works have been noted for their nuance. Biplob Pra­sai of APEX caught up with him recently.

Why do you refrain from using your family name?

I decided to avoid using my surname around 10-12 years ago. I think surnames and castes only divide people, so I just want to be known as Brazesh. I person­ally try not to use my sur­name in any medium I work with but people still tend to use it for me, which I can do nothing about.

What inspired you to take up writing initially?

My father was a renowned journalist and we had our own printing press and a weekly newspaper. I grew up being surrounded by pen and paper, so writing was the most natural thing to do. This in turn encouraged me to take up a career in literature later in my life.

When and how did writing, as a career, start for you?

My first article was pub­lished in “Gorkhapatra” when I was in the 8th grade. I don’t remem­ber what it was about but at that time, getting published in the only national daily of Nepal was a huge deal for me. It inspired me to write more. With this new-found con­fidence, I started contributing to my father’s newspaper. It slowly became my habit and later it turned into an addiction.

From a writer to an actor and then a script writer, how did the transition happen?

Growing up, I was involved in almost everything from writing to playing sports to participating in dramas at school functions. My involve­ment with theater at an early age nurtured my love for act­ing. After completing class 10, I got to play a part in the serial ‘Panchatantra’ which my father was directing for Nepal Television in the early years of the channel.

Then I began writing scripts for TV serials, after which I got offers from the film industry. It was also a period I took a break from literary writing. Acting is quite dif­ferent to writing but both are related to creativity and I have always been interested in anything that stimulates cre­ativity in me. Maybe that’s the reason I have ended up doing so many things.

What made you switch back to writing after being with the film industry for so many years?

I got so involved and busy with films that I never actually had a thought about writing for quite some time. But one fine morning I real­ized it wasn’t the only thing I wanted to do. Financially, I was satisfied with what I was earning, but I am someone who doesn’t get greedy once his basic needs are met. When a person real­izes he does not need to be confined by money, he is free to do a lot. So I got back to writing literature because it was where my heart belonged. I started writing articles and during that period I decided to write a novel. Everybody has a story to tell and I also had many. I wanted to put my stories before a larger audi­ence. Thus I started on my first novel.

Hope it doesn’t mean you have given up acting com­pletely.

No, not really. I do get approached for acting jobs occasionally. If I find some­thing that excites and chal­lenges me, I will for sure take up the project. Currently, there’s talks about adapting ‘Shirish ko Phool’ for a theat­rical production at Shilpi the­ater. If things go as planned, I will soon step back into my acting shoes.

So what are you currently involved in?

I’m writing a weekly humor column for an online news portal, which is going very well and people are enjoy­ing it. At the same time, I am writing a memoir on my three-decade-long experience in Nepali cinema. It will come out in a couple of months.

“Every day I lie to comfort my wife that everything is going to be fine but in reality things are falling apart,” says Babu Raja Rajthala. Rajthala had to spent nearly all his wealth when his wife, Kesari, 42, had to undergo renal dialysis for around two years before she could get a new kidney. In the two years, Rajthala had already sold all his properties back home in Hetauda for his wife’s treatment. The long stay in the expensive capital city compounded his financial woes. By the time of the transplant, Rajthala was penniless and he could not even buy post-transplant medicines.

The couple’s children are suffering too. “They can’t contin­ue their college education because I can no longer pay their fees,” Rajthala laments.

It could have been a different sto­ry if the Rajthala family had access to the government grant for kidney failure patients right at the start. His wife received the government grant only after seven months of the operation, by which time even her new kidney was damaged. To make the kidney fully functional again, she has to undertake another round of expensive treatment, and Rajthala family simply does not have the money.

The Rajthalas are far from the only sufferers. According to the Health Ministry, around three million Nepalis suffer from kidney-related diseases, and there are currently more than 30,000 patients whose kidneys have failed. That number increases by 3,000 every year.

Renal disease is considered dan­gerous in Nepal, as the patients can live only if they can afford the expensive treatment.

Limited options

Those diagnosed with kid­ney failure have only two options—to undergo dialysis for the rest of their lives or get another kidney. Both processes are costly. Dial­ysis—in which an exter­nal machine temporarily replicates the functions of healthy kidneys—doesn’t cure the underlying dis­ease. A patient has to undergo dialysis 2 or 3 times a week, depending on the severity of the problem. The procedure costs Rs 6,000-9,000 a week; whereas it costs around Rs 400,000-500,000 to transplant a kidney.

The government made dialysis and kidney transplant services free from 2016-2017 and the services are now being provided in over 50 private and government hos­pitals across Nepal. For a single patient, the government bears almost Rs 550,000 on kidney trans­plant and Rs 2,500 per dialysis. The total yearly subsidy comes to over Rs 1 billion a year.

“There have been no recent studies but I believe the government initiative has encouraged more people to seek treat­ment, which has saved many lives,” says Dr Pukar Chandra Shres­tha, Executive Direc­tor of Human Organ Transplant Center (HOTC) at Bhaktapur.

Many patients, few machines

But according to data from the Department of Health Services (DOHS), until May 14, 2018, there were only 410 dialysis machines pro­viding completely free services. The patients outnumber the machines by a huge margin.

“Every day, the number of patients is increasing whereas the number of machines remains con­stant,” says Dr Rajani Hada, Head of Kidney Department at the gov­ernment-run Bir Hospital. “Also, the existing machines are occupied by old patients who need continuous treatment, sometimes preventing the new patients from enrolling.” According to Hada, a dialysis session lasts around four hours and even if the hospital manages to work in three shifts on a single machine, only three people can receive the treatment per day.

Jung Bahadur Thapa Magar, a patient who recently got a kidney transplant at HOTC, chose to ignore the free service and opted to pay out of his own pocket so he could receive timely treatment.

“It takes around 1-2 months to complete the formalities for free services,” says Magar. “Even after that, there is no guarantee of timely service.”

Government officials corroborate his claim. “It takes a minimum of four months to pro­vide the money to the victim,” says Prakash Ghimire, an officer at the DOHS. “The decision-making is dismally slow in our health bureaucracy.”

There are currently more than 450 patients registered for free dialysis at HOTM, many of them on the waiting list. New enrollments have been can­celled as there are not enough dial­ysis machines to meet the demand. Many of the existing machines are not functional or only partly so. In Bir Hospital, 19 dialysis machines lie unused because there aren’t enough trained human resources.

The medi­cines are expensive too. The government provides almost Rs 150,000 to every kidney patient to buy medicines after a transplant. But often that is not enough. In order to protect the newly transplanted kidney, a patient has to rely heavi­ly on medicines. The monthly bill for medicines comes to around Rs 20,000-25,000 for a couple of years after the transplant. Gradually, the cost decreases to Rs 10,000-12,000 a month, which is still expensive considering that the patients have to consume medicines all their lives.

Bimala Basnet’s 14-year-old daughter Binisha has been under­going dialysis for two years. Basnet, who sells fruits inside the HOTC premises, has an unpleasant impres­sion of transplant. “I’ve only seen transplant end people’s lives. I don’t recommend it unless the patient’s family has at least Rs 500,000 in reserve,” she says.

Ghimire of DOHS feels providing medicines to hospitals would be more effective than giving cash to the victims, and says that a review of the existing mechanism is already underway.

Prevention is cure

Nephrologists are pushing the idea of kidney transplant as a per­manent cure, but lack of human resources and infrastructure and unclear rules are major hurdles. As per government rules, only relatives can donate a kidney to a patient.

“This limits the availability of healthy kidneys. Moreover, kidneys may not match even among rela­tives, and older people’s kidneys are not healthy enough,” says Dr Dibya Singh Shah, Professor and Head of Department of Nephrol­ogy at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Maharajgunj. According to a DOHS report (July 16, 2016-May 14, 2018), only 203 could get new kidneys in the period.

Health prac­titioners in the field blame the government for introducing the free services without proper homework. Renal diseases can be easily cured if diag­nosed early, they say, and yet there is no initiative in early diagnosis and prevention.

The average cost for a kidney test is only Rs 300. Health practitioners believe that establishing health clinics across the country and pro­moting regular check-ups is the right way to go about it. Also, there is a need to decentralize dial­ysis services away from major cities.

“Those with dysfunctional kidneys need lifelong dialysis. How can a poor person afford it?” Shah asks rhetorically. “If only the focus shifted to prevention, things would be much better. Until then, it’s a vicious circle of medications and surgeries.”

With the number of kidney patients steadily rising in what is still a poor country, how long the government will continue to support kidney patients is also an open question.

Kidney failure, which is getting more and more common in Nepal, is potentially deadly. It is also an expensive ailment to treat. This is why the government heavily subsidizes dialysis (basically, getting an external machine to ‘clean the blood’ in lieu of the kidneys), as well as transplant of new kidneys. The post-transplant medicines are also subsidized. Yet there is a problem.

Even as renal failure is a matter of life and death for many sufferers, the government health bureaucracy takes six to seven months to clear the subsidies that all kidney-failure patients are entitled to. As our report this week points out, there have been cases, for instance, when a subsidy for the medicines of a patient was cleared only after six months of the transplant, by which time even the new kidney had developed complications. 

Another problem is that while there are only 410 dialysis machines in the country to provide subsidized care, the number of patients is constantly increasing. Every year, there are 3,000 new cases of kidney failures and in many of the cases the patients will need life-long dialysis. But all the available machines are occupied by old patients. Also, the dialysis and transplant services are heavily concentrated in one or two urban hubs.

There is thus an urgent need to improve the services for needy kidney failure patients. Moreover, if the symptoms of kidney failure can be spotted early, then in most cases they are completely treatable. Early detection programs could also significantly reduce the growing burden on the state that comes with heavily subsidized renal failure treatment.

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When the ‘system’ is incapable of meeting people’s expecta­tions, even a puppet attached to strings starts raising its voice in revolt. This is the idea behind the name “Screaming Marionette”, the five-mem­ber band that makes metal core music and that is creating quite a name for itself in the underground scene.Screaming Marionette was formed in 2016 when the singer Nikesh Bhujel’s family shifted to Kathmandu from Pokhara, compelling him to quit his hometown band. On his arrival in Kathmandu, he enrolled at Sangeet Pathshala where he met guitarist Nabin Khadka, bassist Sulav Jung and drummer Sushan Gurung to form the current ensemble.

“We wanted to see how things would work out,” says Nikesh. “We started by playing covers of our favorite artists to check the chemistry between the band members.” All has since gone well for the band, besides a small change in the line-up with Sulav Jung leaving for abroad studies and Nimesh Nakarmi replacing him. And thus began the metal band’s musical odyssey.

But when the band decided to participate in the 13th Inter College Music Competition (ICMC) in 2017, they felt they were a guitarist short. That’s when Screaming Marionette recruited Pokhara-based gui­tarist Sajan Gurung and the band continues, with four members in Kathmandu and one in Pokhara.

There are obvious difficul­ties with this arrangement, but the band credits internet and technology to still being able to make music together despite the logistical chal­lenge. “We use the internet to add inputs to our music, share videos back-and-forth and to communicate, and it has been a relatively smooth ride for us so far,” Nabin, the guitarist, says. “For live shows, Sajan travels to Kathmandu a few days before the concert to practice with us.”

The band won the ICMC in 2017 and followed the suc­cess with the launch of its debut EP called “Corrupted Society” this year, “its greatest achievement so far”. “There is a lot of hard work, money and emotions involved in mak­ing an album,” says Nabin. “Many bands like us disman­tle even before launching an album; it’s something we can to look back upon proudly all our lives.”

At the launch of their album in Purple Haze, the band received enormous crowd support, a rarity for metal music in Nepal, the band says. Speaking about support, the band had the full backing of the families of its members. There was just one concern: their chosen genre.

“They asked us to sing songs that people actually under­stood,” says Nikesh, who does lead vocals for Screaming Mar­ionette in guttural growls that most people fail to decipher. “But they’ve given up now and have accepted the genre we’re doing,” add Nimesh, the bass player.

Financially, the band is still under stress. Reluctant to ask their families to fund their music, the band mem­bers, with the help of their day-jobs, bear all the expenses incurred in making and recording music.

“We have never asked for money to perform,” says Nabin. “But now that we have an album out, and one which is doing well, we hope things change. We want our music to cover at least some of our expenses.”

The band in the near future plans to complete its EP tour in eastern Nepal and to release its latest album online in various mediums like Spotify and Bandcamp. The goal is to get a little monetary support to be able to continue with their music.