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For many who grew up in rural Nepal, the sharp, tangy taste of kabro (Ficus lacor) pickle brings back warm childhood memories. This seasonal treat was once a favourite among children, who often ate the young shoots and fruits straight from the trees. The fresh leaves, buds, and fruits were not just tasty—they were part of everyday cooking in many homes.

But eating too much kabro had its side effects. Many children joked about how it could cause an upset stomach or diarrhea. Still, this wild ingredient had a special place in both the kitchen and traditional medicine. Sadly, like many other native foods, kabro is disappearing from Nepali households, replaced by modern and processed foods.

What is kabro?

Kabro, or Ficus lacor, is a large, fast-growing tree found in Nepal, India, Bhutan, Myanmar, and across Southeast Asia. It belongs to the Moraceae family, which also includes figs and mulberries. The tree grows well in tropical and subtropical climates. Apart from feeding humans, it also supports wildlife—its fruits are a favourite of many birds and animals.

In Nepal, making pickles from kabro is an age-old tradition. The young buds, leaves, and fruits are harvested during specific seasons and used to make a tangy, slightly bitter pickle that goes perfectly with rice and dhido (a traditional buckwheat porridge).

The best time to pick kabro is when the buds or leaves are young and reddish in colour. Once they mature, they are mostly used as animal fodder.

Ingredients for kabro pickle

• Tender kabro shoots or young leaves
• Turmeric powder
• Salt
• Timur (Sichuan pepper)
• Red chilies
• Cardamom
• Ginger and garlic paste
• Mustard oil
• Lemon juice

Methodology 

Wash the young leaves and shoots properly. Lightly boil them to remove some of the bitterness and soften the texture. Let them cool, then mix with turmeric, salt, and other spices. Sauté the mixture in mustard oil until it smells rich and aromatic. Add lemon juice for a tangy twist. Leave the pickle in sunlight for a few days to let it mature. The result is a delicious blend of bitter, sour, and spicy flavours—a taste that brings back memories for many Nepalis.

Kabro in traditional Medicine

Kabro isn’t just a tasty pickle. It has long been valued for its healing properties in traditional medicine. In small amounts, kabro supports digestion and relieves bloating. It’s often used to treat indigestion and gastric discomfort. Packed with antioxidants, it helps strengthen the immune system. The bark and leaves have anti-inflammatory properties. Some studies suggest kabro helps lower blood sugar.

A tradition at risk

As more people move to cities and processed foods become common, traditional items like kabro pickle are being forgotten. Reviving them is important—not just for nostalgia, but to protect Nepal’s rich culinary heritage and improve food diversity.

How to bring kabro pickle back

Promote in local communities

Raise awareness of kabro’s health benefits and traditional value.=

Feature in restaurants

Traditional eateries can include kabro pickle on their menus to attract curious food lovers.

Encourage small-scale production

Kabro pickle can be packaged and sold as a specialty item, offering economic opportunities for rural communities.

Kabro beyond Nepal

Kabro isn’t just known in Nepal. Cultures across Asia use it in their own ways. For example, in Northern Thailand, a delicious curry is made using the young leaves of Ficus lacor.

Here’s a simple way to prepare kabro curry with Chicken or Pork, inspired by Thai cuisine. Pick only the soft young leaves, removing the thick leaf stems. Fry Thai curry paste (or make your own curry paste) in a pot until aromatic. Add chicken or pork, and stir until the meat is well-coated and cooked. Pour in water and bring to a boil. Add the kabro leaves and boil until they are tender. Turn off the heat. The curry is ready to serve. This dish has a rich, earthy flavour and is a wonderful way to enjoy kabro beyond pickles.

Bringing back a lost flavor

The kabro pickle is a piece of Nepal’s food history. As we explore new tastes, we should not forget the value of the past. By reintroducing kabro into our diets, we are not only reconnecting with tradition but also making a healthy, sustainable choice. Let’s bring kabro back to our kitchens and preserve this forgotten gem for future generations.

The author is a London-based R&D chef

I can’t quite recall how I ended up teaching primary school students, but it was my first proper job. After completing my intermediate studies in arts from Ratna Rajya Campus in the early 1990s, I was struggling to make ends meet in Kathmandu. My parents had stopped sending me their modest monthly allowance, which barely covered my rent and basic survival.

I must have seen an ad somewhere, which led me to the back alleys of Babarmahal, where an Indian couple had set up a primary school on the ground floor of a three-story building. Strangely enough, as I write this, I’m sitting in a quiet office near the confluence of the Bagmati and Dhobi Khola rivers–close to where it all began.

They hired me to teach English. The principal and his wife were impressed by my English grades. But the stint didn’t last long, and I later heard the school shut down soon after I left.

A few years later, I found myself commuting from my rented room in Thapagaun to Lamatar in Lalitpur district–changing two buses to get there. My friend Kamal Paudel had to leave town for personal reasons, and I was his stand-in at the school. Back then, I was deeply into Bollywood films and sported shoulder-length hair. The headmaster appreciated my teaching, but he asked me to cut my hair. As a young man with a flair for fashion and a fierce sense of freedom, I chose to walk away from my second teaching job.

As my journalism career progressed and later began to stall, I found myself circling back to teaching. Following covid pandemic, freelance journalism opportunities began to dry up. After my stint at a fact-checking organization, I started training journalists on verification and tackling mis- and disinformation. But those gigs were few and far between. 

I had failed to revive my freelance career. In my golden years as a freelance journalist, I always had three stories on the go: one already edited and awaiting publication, another in the reporting stage with an approved pitch, and a third, a solid idea ready to be pitched. But in recent years, my pitches were being regularly rejected, leaving me dejected and crestfallen.

Then, just before Dashain last year, I received an unexpected call from Krishna Niroula, the principal of the Institute of Advanced Communication, Education and Research (IACER) in Kathmandu. He offered me a chance to teach a course to postgraduate students of English literature, filling in for Ujjwal Prasai, who had left for the US to pursue a PhD. Kamal Dev Bhattarai, another friend who taught at IACER, had recommended me for the course.

Fortunately, I wasn’t starting from scratch. Two years ago, I’d been invited as a guest lecturer in the same course. Even better, the course, “Writing in the Digital Age”, had been designed by a friend, Dinesh Kafle. Knowing I could lean on him if I stumbled gave me some confidence. Still, this was a far cry from my Babarmahal days. I was now standing in front of graduate students and the stakes felt higher.

The course was close to my heart. It introduced students to powerful writing, from George Orwell to David Foster Wallace to English translations of essays by Buddhi Sagar and Raju Syangtan. I made a few tweaks to the reading list, adding some of my personal favorites: Pankaj Mishra, Manjushree Thapa, Indra Bahadur Rai, Declan Walsh, Samanth Subramanian and Peter Matthiessen. Their work had helped shape my worldview as a writer; now, I hoped it would inspire my students too.

From day one, it was clear the students came from diverse backgrounds, but most lacked formal training in writing. The course’s goal–teaching someone how to write well–felt at times like chasing the impossible. And yet, there we were, trying.

The curriculum already featured multimedia: a video of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The Danger of a Single Story” was part of the syllabus. I added an audio interview with David Wolf, editor of Guardian Longreads. Wallace’s essay Consider the Lobster, a meditation disguised as a food review, was a surprise hit among the students.

Someone once said: if you want to learn something, teach it. Over those three months, I reconnected with something I’d been losing: my reading habit. Years of social media scrolling and an endless stream of attention-grabbing videos had dulled my focus. But teaching forced me back to the page.

I tried to pass on the lessons I’d gathered from writers and editors I admire and have learned from a great deal over the two decades of my journalism. In 2008, I spent a memorable week at Poynter Institute in Florida. There, I learned the craft of feature writing from masters like Roy Peter Clark, Chip Scanlan and Tom Huang, who hammered home key principles of good writing: brevity, clarity, the power of a strong nut graf or the main idea of the story, the magic of scene-setting. 

At IACER, “Show, don’t tell” became my classroom mantra. I was delighted when the students began to echo the phrase in their own reflections. I also emphasized the importance of capturing sensory details–the sights, sounds and smells–that bring writing to life.

I also shared my own journey: how I began as a reporter for the now defunct Nepal Weekly magazine in the early 2000s, writing in Nepali, and eventually won an Alfred Friendly Fellowship in the US in 2008 (that’s when I spent a week learning the craft of writing at Poynter). That experience opened new doors–I wrote for Time magazine, then worked for international news agencies like AFP and dpa. I explained how I went on to write for The New York Times, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Outside, The Caravan and Nikkei Asia.

Standing before the class each week, I felt a quiet sense of fulfillment. Teaching didn’t just pass on the craft–it rekindled my joy in learning it.

In recent days, a strong debate has resurfaced in Nepal’s political landscape: monarchy versus democracy. Nepal has a long history of monarchy, particularly under the Shah dynasty, which ruled the country for centuries until the introduction of an interim constitution in 2007. The swift and peaceful transition from monarchy to a democratic republic was remarkable. The last king of Nepal, Gyanendra Shah, stepped down and left the palace without resistance, marking a historic moment in the nation’s political evolution.

Following the abolition of the monarchy, the country embraced a republican democratic system, which was widely welcomed by the public. However, political parties have since struggled to maintain the trust of the people. The transition was marred by inefficiencies, broken promises and poor governance. One key issue has been the adoption of an inflated and disorganized government structure, which has proven both costly and ineffective. The socialist orientation of the constitution has also had unintended consequences for Nepal’s economy and overall development. 

Additionally, while federalism was introduced to decentralize power, the central government has been unwilling to truly empower local governments. This has created overlapping responsibilities and financial burdens at both the federal and local levels. Given the country’s limited economic resources, it has been impossible to meet the high expectations raised during political campaigns. Political parties have often made unrealistic promises, leading to widespread disillusionment. Many Nepalis, in turn, have placed faith in these false assurances, often without access to accurate, fact-based information. The rise of social media has further enabled the spread of misinformation, deepening public confusion and distrust. These issues have played a major role in fueling public support for autocratic monarchists.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a monarch is a hereditary head of state with life tenure, whose powers range from symbolic to absolute. In the 21st century, the consolidation of inherited power and rule over the people is no longer acceptable. However, some monarchies continue to exist due to geopolitical factors. These monarchies tend to survive when they remain politically neutral, avoid scandals and maintain a limited ceremonial role. Unfortunately, Nepal’s monarchy has consistently failed in all these aspects.

Some monarchists have argued that Nepal should adopt a democratic monarchy and reinstate former King Gyanendra Shah. This is a baseless argument, rejected by most freedom-loving citizens. History shows that monarchs who seek absolute power are eventually forced to relinquish it or see it dramatically reduced. For instance, in 1920, King Christian X of Denmark dismissed his prime minister and government over a policy disagreement, which led to mass protests and a constitutional crisis. He was ultimately forced to back down. King Leopold III of Belgium spent five years in exile due to his refusal to comply with his government’s decisions.

The Shah dynasty in Nepal has never demonstrated a commitment to constitutional democracy. Instead, its kings repeatedly sought absolute power. Nepal's monarchy might have survived had King Gyanendra not staged a coup in 2005 to seize full control. This pattern of authoritarianism dates back further: King Mahendra executed a coup in 1960, dissolving democratic institutions and concentrating all power in his hands. King Birendra also maintained absolute rule through the Panchayat system, using political manipulation to hold onto power. Any credible historian can confirm that the Shah dynasty consistently pursued authoritarian governance.

Moreover, Nepal’s monarchy has been plagued by scandals—from the tragic royal massacre to allegations against Paras Shah involving illegal drug use, extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, extramarital affairs and ties to criminal networks. These controversies further eroded any moral legitimacy the monarchy once had.

The Shah dynasty has failed to govern Nepal effectively since the time of geographic unification under Prithvi Narayan Shah in 1768. After his reign, successive generations of the royal family were embroiled in internal power struggles, often marked by violence and betrayal. It was not uncommon for royal family members to conspire against or even kill one another in pursuit of power and personal gain. This violent legacy is one of many reasons why the Nepali people should not trust the monarchy or the Shah dynasty.

Even after the political reforms of the 1990s, the monarchy continued to act as an absolute authority, refusing to adapt to democratic norms. A large network of individuals benefited from the palace and the monarchical system, creating vested interest groups that further damaged the monarchy’s reputation. As a result, the institution lost the public’s trust,

The recent rise in pro-monarchy sentiments has negatively affected Nepal's progress toward prosperity and democratic development. Many Nepalis are understandably frustrated by ongoing political instability and economic hardship. However, this frustration has led some to overlook the value of democracy and entertain misguided notions of restoring the monarchy. There is no evidence that bringing back the monarchy would resolve even a fraction of Nepal’s current problems.

Certain political parties and crook networks have exploited pro-monarchy rhetoric to destabilize the democratic system and gain political advantage. Figures like Rabindra Mishra, Rajendra Lingden and Kamal Thapa appear to be leveraging this unrest to expand their influence. For them, whether the system is democratic or autocratic is irrelevant—they enjoy social, economic and political privileges either way. Their primary interest lies in gaining power, even if it means fueling division, protest or violence.

What the Nepali people truly desire is a prosperous nation where they can live freely and securely. Access to quality education, healthcare, public safety and a government that genuinely represents the people are the real needs of the moment. Yes, there is deep dissatisfaction with corruption, lack of opportunity, political instability and the unethical behavior of current leaders. But these issues are far more likely to be addressed within a democratic framework than under an autocratic monarchy.

The monarchy in Nepal was historically corrupt, repressive, autocratic and ineffective. Under its rule, people had no voice or freedom to speak out. Restoring such a system would be a step backward, not forward. Ultimately, Nepal’s future lies not in a return to monarchy but in strengthening its democratic institutions, promoting good governance and focusing on inclusive economic development.

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s government finds itself besieged on multiple fronts. PM Oli faces perhaps his most severe test since returning to power, with simmering public discontent threatening to boil over into broader instability. Across the country, disparate protest movements are gaining momentum—from pro-monarchy rallies capitalizing on a growing nostalgia for the royal era to weeks-long teacher strikes paralyzing education sectors. The recent communal violence in Birgunj serves as a worrying harbinger of how quickly localized grievances can escalate into wider unrest.

The economic backdrop further compounds these challenges. With growth stagnating and inflation squeezing household budgets, public patience with political dysfunction has worn dangerously thin. Even within the ruling coalition, tensions have reached unprecedented levels as a section of the Nepali Congress (NC) has voiced open dissatisfaction with the government’s performance. Some leaders have openly questioned whether continued support for Oli’s administration remains politically tenable.

Multiple sources within both ruling and opposition parties confide that there’s growing anxiety that the current constitutional order could face existential threats if the government fails to regain control of the narrative. The resurgence of monarchist sentiment, once considered politically marginal, has particularly alarmed republican forces across the spectrum. 

Analysts point to a dangerous vacuum emerging where the state's inability to deliver basic governance has allowed alternative political models to regain credibility among disillusioned citizens. The peace process-era promises of stability, development and accountable governance have largely gone unfulfilled, with corruption scandals and bureaucratic inertia dominating headlines. Prime Minister Oli’s opponents argue his administration has exacerbated these problems through a combination of distracted leadership and poor prioritization. 

Meanwhile, the coalition dynamics present Oli with an excruciating dilemma. While he depends on NC support to remain in power, that very dependence limits his ability to take decisive action. This climate of uncertainty has reportedly led to a reactive rather than strategic governing approach, with policies being crafted more to placate coalition partners than address systemic issues.

NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba’s role as both stabilizer and potential disruptor adds another layer of complexity. The NC leader has so far resisted calls from within his party to reconsider the alliance, but his continued support appears increasingly conditional. Oli’s repeated public commitments to honor the leadership transition agreement with Deuba reflect this precarious balance. Deuba faces his own mounting pressures, with NC hardliners arguing the party gains nothing from propping up an unpopular government while sharing the blame for its failures.

With skeptical rhetoric within the ruling coalition out in public, Prime Minister Oli held a discussion with coalition partner Deuba on Tuesday morning. The hour-long meeting at Baluwatar addressed concerns about the coalition’s longevity and criticisms that its functioning hasn’t reflected true partnership. Sources close to Prime Minister Oli confirmed there’s no fundamental disagreement between the two leaders regarding the coalition’s validity or duration. 

“Historically, unresolved issues between our parties have been settled through institutional mechanisms, and this tradition will continue,” a Baluwatar source said. “Both leaders are likely to promptly address these matters through formal channels.”

The coalition’s coordination committee will convene within days, with NC Vice-president Purna Bahadur Khadka currently serving as its coordinator.  

These developments follow opposition leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s New Year statement predicting imminent government change. The Maoist leader’s careful framing—suggesting an NC-led government as the natural alternative—appears designed to encourage defections while maintaining plausible deniability. However, Dahal faces his own credibility challenges, with many questioning whether his frequent government change predictions amount to meaningful strategy or mere political posturing.

Within the NC, the debate over the alliance has evolved from muted grumbling to open dissent. Shekhar Koirala’s blunt assessment that the party holds power without real influence captures the growing sentiment among NC lawmakers who feel they bear the costs of governance without enjoying its benefits. 

The party’s younger generation, represented by figures like Gagan Kumar Thapa, has been particularly vocal in demanding course correction. “We thought that the coalition of two major parties would initiate an amendment to the constitution to improve governance and expedite development works,” Thapa said.“But this government has failed to meet the expectations of the people.”

Another leader Bishwa Prakash Sharma has suggested Prime Minister Oli to focus on governance and development, rather than spending his precious time confronting his detractors. NC’s message to the prime minister is clear: to build public confidence in this coalition, he must deliver and not deviate.  

As the pressure mounts, Oli’s room for maneuver continues to narrow. The Prime Minister finds himself caught between an impatient public, restive coalition partners, and resurgent opposition. His recent efforts to project confidence, including claims that the UML-NC alliance remains strong, appear increasingly disconnected from the political realities on the ground.