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Literary figure Shree Prasad Upadhyay (SP Asa) is no more. He died at the age of 80 on November 15. He was a renowned literary figure who wrote about history and made it interesting.

According to his daughter Uma Ghimire, SP Asa had been suffering from prostate cancer for the past three years. A day before his death, he suffered a brain hemorrhage and was admitted to B&B Hospital in Gwarko. He breathed his last at the Pashupati Aryaghat, leaving behind his wife, three daughters, and a son. His last rites were performed on the day he died.

Asa was born in Sitapaila, Saranpur, and was always interested in reading and writing. He wrote about political issues and historical upheavals including the Rana regime and dethronement of King Gyanendra among others.

Among his varied interests were finding scientific explanations of many of our religious rituals. He gave many fascinating scientific explanations for activities carried about by pundits in various ritualistic ceremonies.

Ek Aankhe, Dui Mukundo, Abhag, Sister Shova, Antim Abhilasha, Doctor D, Mahasamanta, Raktasamman, Ek Babako Jeevani, Dravya Shah, Chitkar, Serofero are some of his published novels. He also dabbled in poetry and has published a few collections as well. He was popular for his social, detective, and historical novels. Loktantra Aghi ko Mahabharat and Nepal ko Pahilo Kotparva are some of his works on history. All in all, he has published more than three dozen books. He also wrote newspaper articles.

He also served as the vice chairman of the National Committee of the World Hindu Federation and was active in the restoration of democracy. He was also involved in politics and a leader of the Nepali Congress in the revolutions that took place in the country.

Asa Pragyan Kendra was established in his name in 2012 and has branches in Sikkim, Assam, and Manipur in India, Canada, United States of America, United Kingdom, and Australia. The center, with assistance from the Nagarjuna Municipality, has published a memorial volume in Upadhyay’s honor.

Post-graduate students in Nepali have written research papers on him. Various authors have written books on his literary life. But his legacy perhaps lies in the fact that he was a kind man, always willing to lend a helping hand. His daughter Uma says he was a support system for the family as well as his relatives and friends.

In his own ways, he was a philanthropist too. He advocated for women’s empowerment and was a staunch supporter of the necessity to educate girls and women. He also used to narrate stories of Shivapuran, Shreemad Bhagwat Saptaha Puran, and Nawah (religious ceremonies) in public and help collect money to construct public buildings.

 “He used to give money to children for their studies,” says his daughter, adding he never shied away from helping others, even when he might not have had enough himself.

Before his death, he had wanted to publish a book on how Palpa’s Rani Mahal was constructed and how girl children were sent to the palaces. But the dream didn’t materialize because of a lack of funds.

For her father’s sake, Uma wishes the government to give literature its due and invest in it so that writers like Upadhyay can wholly immerse themselves in the field.

Born: 30 July 1944

Death: 15 Nov 2023

In Jessamine Chan’s debut novel, ‘The School for Good Mothers,’ we meet Frida Liu, a 39-year-old single mother, who is overworked and struggling to stay on top of her personal and professional duties. Then one day, in an insomnia-induced irrational state, she leaves her 18-month-old daughter Harriet alone at home for two hours. She has to go to the office to retrieve a file.

Next thing she knows, she’s being hauled into police custody for child abandonment. Her daughter is handed over to her ex-husband and his partner. But Frida isn’t a bad mother. She just had a bad moment. Even when she tries to repent and convince the ‘authorities’ that she loves Harriet and won’t repeat her mistake, everything she does is interpreted as evidence of her negligence and incompetence.

She is eventually sent to a place that teaches women how to be good mothers. The crimes of the other mothers range from testing positive for marijuana use to letting her child play alone. Each woman is assigned a robotic child and she must practice her parenting skills—hugging (for not a second too long or less), kissing, maintaining eye contact, etc.—with it.

In order to get Harriet back, Frida has to be able to show those in charge that she is capable of putting her child before her in all instances by loving the robot like it’s her child. But it’s not easy. The robot is programmed to be difficult and it sends recorded data to the authorities. The ‘experimental rehab facility’ with cameras everywhere is like a prison and the tiniest violation of rules can lead to permanent termination of parental rights. There is no way to win but countless ways in which you could be deemed an unfit parent.

The School for Good Mothers isn’t a horror novel. But you will be spooked nonetheless. It has a chilling dystopian feel to it that makes you shudder. It makes you question the unnecessary societal burden of expectations that’s put primarily on the mothers. Why are women expected to be at the top of their game when it comes to nurturing? Do they have to love being a parent all the time or are they allowed to be tired and maybe even crib about how draining it is once in a while?

The book is reminiscent of Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. Those who have enjoyed reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Never Let Me Go’ will enjoy Chan’s The School for Good Mothers as there are many similarities between the two stories. But I suggest you go into it with an open mind as many instances will have you rolling your eyes at the incredulity of it all.

Fiction

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57846320-the-school-for-good-mothers 

The School for Good Mothers

Jessamine Chan

Published: 2022

Publisher: Penguin Books

Pages: 319, Paperback

For a country like Nepal, where authorities have political and politically personal priorities to meet, there are limited contributions and advocations to make in global and even regional platforms. They can neither influence interceptive response nor alleviative fight against forest fire. Nevertheless, there are still numerous actions, and more importantly, responsibilities to administer at the local level that can prove to be significant to reduce the impact. The easiest thing that we can do is to talk about it. Obviously, not to the point where the talk starts traumatizing people, but up to the point where the talk makes people think that it is dangerous, its occurrence is inevitable, it can happen again, but it can be dealt with. There should be discussions, from the kitchen corner and local tea shop to the media, and from Chautari to Singha Durbar, about what can happen and how.

It has been a few months now since the catastrophic, but not unexpected, fire caravan passed through our forests. So, let’s talk about this. Talk helps to process the gravity of post-disaster trauma, enhances perception towards the fire, triggers a ‘blame game’ dominos among stakeholders, and eventually raises voice to a ‘Kathmandu Standard’ frequency that is audible to at least one Department or Responsible Authority. It was a pity that nobody took responsibility to give victims and burnt forests a horizon to look up for relief and rehabilitation. But who actually was going to take responsibility for the wildfire anyway? Department of Forest? National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority? Locals? God? No one? 

Talks ignite mass thinking, and eventually, mass awareness. Such awareness on fire anatomy is the simplest yet the most significant way to fight fire. Anatomically, fire is made up of three components: heat, fuel, and oxygen. They collectively make a fire triangle. Getting rid of one of them will break the fire chain and stop any fire. In a natural environment, it is rather impossible to remove oxygen from the fire triangle, therefore, heat and fuel are two components that can be manipulated to break the fire triangle. 

If we break down the fire triangle into a fire equation, there are numerous dependent and independent variables that influence forest fires. The forests’ species composition is one of the variables for fire occurrence, and in return the fire regime and frequency of occurrence dictate back the forest composition. Unlike other fire-dependent forests (such as in Australia), our forests don’t possess a defined fire regime. The species aren’t fire dependent; they neither encourage the fire to ignite and spread nor rehabilitate from extensive damages after the fire. Even though such periodic and recurring fire events are not attributes of our forests, they do occur, mostly during the dry season before monsoon.

Climate change, however, is the one that drastically influences the equation. In the current context, it is no speculatation to say that climate change is considerably the strongest variable for the increasing trend of forest fires globally, including in Nepal. The elongated dry seasons, irregular precipitation, and spiking rise in temperature have made forest fires inconsistently frequent and catastrophic. Such uncharacteristic fires not only burn down the existing forest resources but also facilitate weed infestation and alter the historical species composition of native forests. In the hilly and mountainous frame of reference, the challenging landscape is another strong variable that brutally facilitates fire spreading and impedes firefighting. 

It is, nonetheless, not right to blame climate change for everything that goes wrong in the forest and alleviate ourselves from the equation. That’s because almost all forest fires in Nepal are anthropogenically induced. Such fires are most likely to burst out in the proximity of settlements given the common sources of heat are pre-cultivation preparation burns, post-harvest residue burns, unsmothered campfires, cigarette butts, and other religious and recreational fires. In addition, increased migration patterns triggered by climatic vulnerabilities have created a circle of increasing forest cover, increasing fuel load, increasing risk of catastrophic fire events, and eventually increasing the migration. Since fires start in the vicinity of settlements, serious damages to settlements are foreseen, including fatalities, injuries, property and crop damage, and exposure of communities to socio-economic vulnerability and psychological trauma. 

In Nepal, forests have been extensively exploited for purposes ranging from livelihood support and tourism to industrial entrepreneurship and infrastructural development. From Kharkhadai and Yarsagumba collection to illegal extraction of forest resources, every human maneuver poses a threat of forest fire. People, hence, are the center of problems but also the center of solutions. There are more than 22000 Community Forests in Nepal with hundreds of thousands of locals of Community Forests registered as associated user groups. 

Hypothetically, user groups are managing forests intending to sustainably exploit them in perpetuity. Forests have been managed by traditional users for centuries. There are therefore traditional approaches prevalent for fire management with the localized skill and extensive understanding of their forest. If such traditional skills are incorporated with safety procedures, contemporary science, and professionalized responsibility, it will generate the most effective and methodical package for fire management. Training those user groups will constitute a huge squad of local firefighters; firefighters who won’t wait for the fire to start to fight against it, who fight fire every day. The training could include operational safety procedures, fuel reduction, prescribed burn, and awareness programs. 

At present, we neither have readily available technology nor profuse skilled manpower to modernize firefighting. However, with available local resources and trained volunteers, fire breaks, drenches, rainwater harvest reservoirs, and fire towers could still be engineered. The construction of fire prevention structures and utilization of forest extracts, especially the dead and dry resources could effectively reduce the fuel load and hence axes the vulnerability of forests to a catastrophic event. One of the major headaches, nevertheless, will be the investment in operational tools and safety equipment. But the biggest headache is migration.

As we mentioned earlier, there is a serious consequence of migration on forest fires. The out-migration not only increases the forest area in and around the village but also intrudes on human-nature coexistence. Most if not every household in rural Nepal used to rear cattle. These cattle were cogs for active farmland, rangeland, and forest management. 

Some activities triggered by cattle were grazing, fodder and firewood collection, dry leaves collection for bedding materials, forest trial delineation, and landscaping. The aforementioned activities were the reason why local people comprehended forest geography, composition, physiology, and biodiversity. Everything that was collected from forests eventually ended up in farmland in the form of fences, mulch, and manure that contributed to subsistence farming. The whole phenomenon, hence, established a historical linkage between forests and hand-to-mouth affairs in every family in rural Nepal. Therefore, people worshiped auspicious forests in the name of Bankali, Ban Devi, Deurali, Nagasthan, Chautari, etc., and celebrated auspicious days such as Deurali Puja, Jhakri Puja, Deuli Puja, etc. to pay gratitude to forests and nature. 

Given the cultural structure and composition of rural communities, traditional beliefs and norms had a strong influence on forest management. And then the migration started. Migration, for various significant reasons, enabled poverty reduction, changed the socio-economic activities and livelihood patterns of villages, shuffled the demographic structure, and broke off the traditional land-use motif. Eventually, the inevitable lack of manpower, willpower, and reasons for active intervention in forests led to reduced active forest management in community forests. 

Anyway, when life gives us lemon, we ought to make lemonade. The forest rehabilitation is the consequent lemonade here. We should perform post-fire salvage operations to harvest economically valuable timber and non-timber products before they are exposed to climatic and pathological attacks. All the woods that had their crown, branches, and bark burnt could still have some salvageable wood left on them. The salvage operation also opens space and circumstances for regeneration. In addition, we should also be aware that if we fail to regenerate, weeds and invasive species can call the forest floor their new home. 

In the end, fire predictions, early fire warnings, and smoke detection systems are some important mechanisms to contain the fire and limit its spread. Science has evolved extravagantly in the past few years and has moved the early detection system from terrestrial to air-based and satellite-based systems eventually resulting in extensive, prompt, precise, and reliable information. There are technologies like unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAV) for fire predictions and vulnerability mapping. UAVs, famously known as Drones, can do much more than feature on Instagram. The use of Nepali satellites for the study and management of disasters has already been realized at the government level for a while now. However, it will take time to execute the realization into practice. 

Meanwhile, NepaliSat-1 and SanoSat-1 have triggered a hopeful question; whether the use of satellite-based systems for real-time fire detection, monitoring, severity mapping, and risk assessment would be possible with Nepali technology?

Mithai shops are a dime-a-dozen today but the Shree Nanda Mithai Bhandar stands out with its timeless recipes. It’s popular with people lining up for their daily dose of Nepali sweets on a daily basis.

“The shop first opened its doors 165 years ago and has been passed down for five to six generations,” says Radha Krishna Rajkarnikar who currently manages the store. The shop is located at the heart of Patan Durbar Square right behind the Krishna mandir. It’s famous for its amazing traditional Newari sweets which carry many cultural values and emotions. Newari sweets are used in almost all of their festivals and marriage ceremonies.

This store prepares more than 35 varieties of sweets. The ‘khuwa ko barfi’, ‘lakhamari’, and ‘jeri swari’ are some of the bestselling items. Despite good business, they haven’t expanded and still make all their items at the store premises itself. Rajkarnikar says this is intentional as they believe their popularity is because of the quality of their products and they don’t want to compromise with it.

“We didn’t open a cafe despite the demands for one because we want to maintain strict discipline regarding cleanliness and quality. We have a lot of regular customers that we don’t want to let down at any cost,” he says.

Behind the shop is a little space where the workers make all the mouth-watering sweets. The Nepali month of Mangsir sees a lot of weddings and the store gets inundated with orders. “Sometimes we make sweets till one in the morning, sleep for four hours, and wake up to complete the orders,” says Rajkarnikar.

Interestingly, the shop isn’t just a place that sells sweets and occasionally allows its workers to take long naps. It’s also where an important part of the Kartik naach takes place. On the second last day of the festival—when Narasingha, the fourth avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, kills the evil power Hiranyakashyap, an asura king of the daityas in the Puranic scriptures of Hinduism. The ceremony is held inside the shop on that day. They empty the cooking room for the ritual.