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When I was a middle school student, I was very crazy about kite-flying. This was the only medium of recreation during Dashain holidays. Some of my classmates were even crazier than me. One of my classmates, Sukhdev Upadhay, became one-eyed as he used to gaze all the time at the midday sun while flying his kite instead of sparing some time to savor those rolling green paddy fields!

However, with the passage of time and adoption of modern lifestyles, students of this day and age do not do much kite-flying. They are busy with their gadgets—mobile phones, computers and laptops—which do more harm than kite-flying does. 

Back in those good old days, the limitless sky was an open canvas and popular playground for kids like us and it didn’t matter whether you were a novice or a seasoned kite-flier. 

My experience of kite-flying tells me that human imagination soars high like a kite as one lets loose the thread from the reel, letting the kite soar high in the crystal-clear sky. Kite-flying offers you breathtaking vistas of the Earth, pleasant sounds of Nature and sacred sweetness and fragrance of marigolds and a myriad other flowers in full bloom. 

Neither too hot nor too cold, the autumn season is very serene and sacred also because of the worship of several goddesses, especially Durga Bhavani. 

Those sweet young days of kite-flying are gone for many of us, but this game can help even grown-ups overcome anxieties and leave the worldly cares behind for a while, though kite-flying from the rooftop of a house generally comes with perils attached like slips, trips and falls.   

This year, View Brew Cafe and Bar is hosting a weeklong kite-flying event with delicious food, various drinks and a breathtaking view of the Kathmandu Valley from their rooftop area, which is  specially designed for a safe kite-flying experience. Kites and accessories are also available at the restaurant for participants. This is a good attempt to remind young generations of the traditional kite-flying competition. 

A break from farm labor

At this time of the year, generally, there is no rain and crops are ripening in their fertile fields, allowing farmers to wind down a bit. They use this brief period to fly kites in the vastness of clear white skies adorned occasionally with the rainbow, while praying to Indra, the god of rain, to not ruin their kite-flying season with rainfall! 

I borrow a line from a beautiful poem of one of the most prominent romantic bards, William Wordsworth, to  support my statement while reminiscing fond memories associated with kite-flying high in the autumn skies shorn of rain clouds: 

“My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky.”

A harbinger of goodness

Myriad kites of different shapes and sizes, made of multi-coloured papers, soar in the azure autumn sky of the Kathmandu Valley and other parts of the country. There’s a popular belief in Nepal that kite-flying brings forth happiness, sound health, peace and prosperity both in the households and in the country. 

This folk festival has health benefits attached as kite-fliers get to soak in the autumn sun, a pure medicine for the human body, which contracts all sorts of infections during the summer.

During this season, kite-flying is done in a big way in India also, including in the state of Gujarat that organizes an international kite festival, which draws global kite-fliers, coinciding with the festive season. Kite-flying is also a ritual dedicated to the Sun, thanking him for the benefaction of crops. 

Kite-flying is an international festival. A global kite-flying festival is held in Paris every year with enthusiastic participation of flies from different parts of the world. 

Making kites

Kites are made of lightweight paper and dried skewers of bamboo. Cotton strings used in kite-flying—with the help of Lattai (kite reel)—are laced with Manjha (a special mix of glass powder and rice paste) to make it strong and sharp so that it can cut other kite strings. Nowadays, multi-coloured kites of different shapes and sizes are available and they create very enchanting scenes in the skies.

“Nhamkha!” The sound of Pema’s voice echoes across the silent mountains but never reaches the motionless Nhamkha covered in snow with an inkling of red. This is a defining moment in Min Bahadur Bham’s cinematic tour de force Shambhala. Pema is truly alone, her red lachha forever woven around Nhamkha’s white fate.

Shambhala is a touching depiction of women’s reality when communal gossip in society becomes her truth. It is also a testimony to the beauty of Nepal, the stunning majestic mountains that peaks seemingly close to the skies.

Shambhala, in Tibetan, means arising to the land of happiness. The themes in the film include polyandry, patriarchy, self-hood, spirituality, nomadic lifestyle, and loyalty. While we may or may not have seen Pema (played by Thinley Lhamo) reach Shambhala explicitly, the director’s message floated around the cold mountain air of upper Dolpo, letting the audience decide if the film was about Pema’s infidelity or Pema’s journey to self-hood.

Pema is married to three brothers: Tashi (played by Tenzin Dalha), Karma (played by Sonam Topden), and Dawa (played by Karma Wangyal Gurung). The main conflict arises when Pema is accused of having an affair with one of the teachers Ram (played by Karma Shakya) in the village while Tashi is away in Lhasa for trade. This conflict leads Pema to go on a quest to prove her loyalty to her husband Tashi. Throughout the journey, we see character development in both Pema and Karma. While Karma accommodated Pema halfway through, he did not overpower her journey. But, rather we see their shared love for music, Rinpoche, and a subtle chemistry emerge.

The conversation around the film surrounds who the father is, this proves how woman’s loyalty is a societal affair. It distracts us from the other essential symbolic meanings in the film. The slow walk through the cold mountains, itself is a testament to Pema’s resilience. Karma is in the dilemma of being a good husband or following his duties as a monk. When Karma leaves Pema to fulfill his duties at the monastery, she falls asleep on the ground, and upon waking up her horse dies. This was a moment in the film when Pema is truly alone. She marches on to create a reality for herself.

The film displays the contradiction of a society where multiple husbands are the norm, but having multiple lovers is a sin. In one scene, we see Tashi warning Pema to stay away from a woman, reasoning she has multiple lovers. The story at times, towards the middle feels minute as the backdrop of the film takes much of the attention. The visuals of the mountains are stunning and even though the characters speak in Tibetan, both subtitles in English and Nepali are provided which suggests Bham’s vision of the audience not being limited to Nepalese and Tibetan-speaking people. The theme is a striking mise en scène looking at the stunning upper Dolpo while witnessing Pema’s solitude and the journey to the self. The lighting stays low-key from start to finish, indicating it is a sentimental story. As we know, cinema can act as a medium of soft power, it feels like a deliberate choice to let the mountains of Dolpo speak at a glacial pace.

This global exposure and recognition of Shambhala is a way of displaying diverse Nepali values, culture, and customs. It was selected to compete for the Golden Bear at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival and also included as a Nepalese submission for the Academy Award For Best International Feature. Thinley Lhamo, who played the protagonist Pema, also won the Boccalino d’Oro Prize For Best Acting Performance at the 77th Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland. Shambhala raises the standard for Nepali cinema. For a film to be popular, its entertainment value is regarded as high, however, even with its slow-paced static long-form shorts, Shambhala receives an engagement among the mainstream Nepali audience as well.

The film also does a fabulous job of showing polyandry culture the way it is, and the culture of people and its stories that often get overlapped by the mountains. The film pulls you back into nature, you can hear the prayer flags in the background, the grazing of yaks, the sound of running water, and the crunch of ice on Pema’s feet. The filmmakers allow us to look at this film from an objective perspective. There are an infinite number of ways we can interpret the ending: finding salvation in God, the beauty of reincarnation, the power of society, love, and faith. In addition to that, it includes a feminist narrative exploring the interplay of individual agency and societal prejudices as a woman who is subscribed to the traditional rules and customs of society. She explores her agency and does what it takes to prove her loyalty even if it means walking through the cold, pregnant.

This story comes from a place of adversity while going through a deep personal subtle change seeing life in a new way. In the journey, the dream sequences add layers and depth to the story. Although Pema takes this expedition to find and prove her loyalty to her husband Tashi, after the reconnection, the confrontation does not give her the peace she anticipated but rather ends in an archery test to prove her loyalty. Although we are unaware if Pema hit the target, we are transported to an abstract dream-like reality of self-acceptance, or maybe a rebirth is displayed.

In this expedition, Pema explores her identity beyond being a wife and a member of society. The lingering question of ‘what will society say?’ holds weight and shows us the power that society still holds. Living in a society comes with being watched, talked about, and even questioned. The mountainous region has always been enticing, we have seen the lives of the mountain, but not its people. Pema takes us on a journey from a daughter to a wife to the self. However, we see this discovery only through loose dialogue exchange between Pema and Karma, and later with Ram when Pema says ‘Everyone has to choose their path’.

Maybe, Shambhala isn’t for everyone, but it is worth watching and contemplating its meaning, quality, and delivery in the contemporary standard of Nepali cinema. While the slow pace of nature depicted in the film has been critiqued, maybe it is a deliberate attempt to show the life of Pema within the even slower tempo of the mountains.

As many as 192 people have so far lost their lives and 30 others have gone missing in the floods, landslides and inundation caused by incessant rains.

Home Ministry spokesperson Rishiram Tiwari informed that 194 people were injured in the incidents of natural disaster.

He said that more than 4,500 disaster-affected people have been rescued so far by mobilizing all security agencies for search, rescue and relief after the floods and landslides.

Emergency relief materials, including food, have been provided to the floods and landslides affected people and the injured are being treated free of cost.

Spokesperson Tiwari said that efforts are being made to open the obstructed highway for the operation of traffic.

KP Sharma Oli

I start by sharing how honored I feel to address John F Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard today. I extend my deepest appreciation to the President of the University, for the generous invitation and excellent arrangements for this event. I feel singularly privileged to stand in this enormous temple of knowledge and wisdom. With all modesty, I stand here to share Nepal’s perspective on transitional justice and climate justice.

First, let me delve into the issue of transitional justice in Nepal.  

As you may know, our country suffered a decade-long armed violence from 1996 to 2006 which resulted in around 17,000 deaths of Nepali people. But we have since come a long way from it, which started with the signing of a Comprehensive Peace Accord between the rebels and the government in 2006. 

Following the Accord, we first held an election to the constituent assembly in 2008 to write a new constitution. However, the disagreements in the assembly resulted in its dissolution without adopting a new constitution. Even then, the first constituent assembly undertook a consequential action--turning Nepal from an autocratic kingdom to a democratic republic by abolishing 240 years long monarchy. The country has also been transformed from unitary to federal state.

The second constituent assembly, elected in 2013, promulgated a new constitution in 2015, solidifying previous gains made in the field of restructuring and democratizing the state. The constitution marks the culmination of our nation’s struggles for democracy that started in the 1950s.  The constitution guarantees a competitive multiparty democratic system of governance, civil liberties, fundamental rights, human rights, full freedom of the press and concept of the rule of law with a view to building an inclusive and prosperous nation. 

In a nutshell, our constitution comprehensively addresses the underlying drivers and catalysts of conflict through substantial social, political and economic reforms. This is a brief scenario of Nepal’s peace process and political transformation. Transitional justice is an integral part of our peace process.

Although transitional justice has remained on the backburner for several years, it was not forgotten. An attempt has been made to resolve this protracted issue of transitional justice. Back in 2015, we established two transitional justice mechanisms, namely, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Commission on Enforced Disappeared Persons. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission alone collected nearly 67 thousand complaints from all over the country and even settled some of them. 

But due to the frequent changes in the government, the issue of transitional justice was delayed for some 18 years after signing of the peace Accord. Now, my government has been formed in a coalition of major two parties of Nepali politics not only to give stability but also to better deliver to Nepali people. These two political parties have a long history of leading the people for their freedom and prosperity. 

In this context, I am happy to share that immediately after the formation of my government, the Transitional Justice bill was passed by the parliament with near consensus. This time, my government is determined to conclude the issue of transitional justice once and for all.

I want to assure you that the process of transitional justice will protect victims’ rights and interests, including legal remedies. It will involve seeking truth, providing reparation, and bringing perpetrators of serious crimes to justice. No blanket amnesty will be given. 

Nepal’s peace process is a nationally led and nationally owned unique process. Unique in the sense that all political parties from the left and right came together and concluded the ‘Peace Accord’. As we move to the last mile tasks of the peace process, we welcome support and encouragement from the international community including our partners in the process for effective implementation of the TJ Act.

We are determined to conclude TJ process to heal the wounds and scars of the conflict period and help the entire society move forward with a sense of reconciliation, peace and harmony. In fact, Nepal is inherently a non-violent, tolerant and peaceful society as it is the birthplace of Gautam Buddha, an apostle of peace.

Now, let me turn to the subject of climate justice.

Our Mother Earth is in the ‘Goldilocks zone’ in terms of Earth’s distance to the Sun.  As the right atmosphere had evolved in the subsequent period, life came to existence on earth. The making of this process took several billion years. Long story short, today, we descendants of ‘Homo sapiens’ rule the surface of the planet earth.

What we know now is that the last two hundred years’ anthropogenic activities have been rendering irreparable damage to the natural ecosystem and atmosphere of our mother earth thereby leading to the destruction of billions of years of evolution in no time.  Axiomatically, it will invite the extinction of life on earth.

Now, the whole world is suffering. But the least developed countries are suffering the most as they do not have resources and technologies to manage adverse impacts of climate change. Moreover, while we have just started to make initial steps for economic development, the problem of global warming and climate change has come our way with increased incidence of disasters. It came to us from the outside world, far from our borders. The cumulative impact of hundreds of years of burning of fossil fuels have largely created these catastrophic problems. 

This is a gross injustice meted out by the advanced industrialized economies with their centuries of exploitation of nature and emissions of greenhouse gas that are largely responsible for the global ecological harms, endangering our very existence. Against this fact, it is entirely rational to call for climate justice. And for us, climate justice is plain and simple: those who pollute the environment have to pay proportionately. Developed countries and major economies must take proportionate responsibility to support developing nations for climate actions, through adequate resources and technology transfer. The major emitters must lead from the front in healing and rehabilitating Mother Nature, reducing the reliance on fossil fuels. The establishment of a “Loss and Damage” fund in the recent UN Climate Change conference was a positive step in recognizing the principle of climate justice, whereby those most responsible for emissions should cover the damages.

If we truly believe in democracy and justice at a global level, then wealthy nations who are responsible for climate damage must compensate for the loss and damage of essential infrastructures and livelihoods of people in vulnerable countries.

The stakes are nothing less than our collective existence. The world cannot continue with a wrong model of carbon intensive development. We must take proportionate actions to limit global warming and climate change, preserve nature, transition to greener economies and embrace a sustainable path forward. We are in the same boat. If we don’t work together to keep it afloat, we will sink together. 

My country Nepal has set an ambitious goal of reaching net zero by 2045, five years ahead of the global target.

Despite being one of the lowest emitters of greenhouse gasses, Nepal is one of the most climate vulnerable countries. We have become a barometer of climate change.

Nepal has hugely been contributing to the health of our planet through its forests, mountains and rivers. Yet, despite these efforts, we continue to bear the brunt of climate change, created largely by the actions of industrialized nations.

Our mountains play a crucial role in regulating the climate and ecosystem of oceans and mountains, with their snow-fed rivers flowing down to the oceans. Nepal’s Himalayas, as a natural climate stabilizer, help maintain a cooling system in a region situated in the hottest zone of the planet between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

But our Himalayas are losing their ice at an alarming rate endangering the lives and livelihood of billions of people based on the river system originated from the Himalayas. 

Neither the heat of the hottest regions nor the ice of the cold poles caused this destruction. It is humanity that has harmed nature, and in turn, nature is contributing to the climate crisis. Therefore, it is our responsibility to protect nature, and in doing so, we must preserve our mountains and forests.

I conclude by stating the obvious: the climate crisis is an unprecedented crisis that engulfs the entire planet. Therefore, it requires commitments, solidarity and collective action on an unprecedented scale.

Thank you for your attention.

Remarks by the Prime Minister Oli in John F Kennedy Jr Forum at Harvard University