The Nepali horror feature film entitled ‘Kathaputali’ is slated for a 2019-end release. Kathaputali is a periodic horror feature film entirely based on terrifying Nepali horror myths and rituals. According to writer and executive producer of Kathaputali, Sampada Malla, “The story revolves around a fantasy kingdom where the rulers are tyrant dictators who sexually assault innocent women for pleasure and kill them.” These dead women in turn create an interesting plot of revenge against their perpetrators, resulting into terrifying horror elements. Kathaputali’s Producer Prithvi Rana Magar says, “I wanted to produce a film that would leave a lasting impression in the audience’s mind. It is something that we have heard of, but never seen in any Nepali horror film.” Kathaputali stars big names in the film industry like Gauri Malla, Mithila Sharma, Karma Shakya, Shilpa Maskey, Usha Rajak and Subarna Thapa.

 Viewed through a hyper-nationalist lens, so many of our kids speaking Hindi, the lingua franca of the Big Brother next door, is a veritable disaster. But it is nothing to be alarmed about. Studies suggest there are many cognitive benefits to being bilingual. But is it good if your child is being exposed to Nepali, Hindi and English at the same time? Won’t that result in confusion? Not necessarily. Hindi and Nepali belong to the same language family, developed in the Indian subcontinent between the 1st and the 4th century CE. If you know one, it is not that difficult to pick up another.

Nonetheless it is interesting that countless Nepali children are learning Hindi through cartoons. The cartoon television networks broadcast in Nepal are all based in India, and their shows often come with a Hindi commentary.

Some of these cartoons are Indian originals (‘Motu Patlu’, ‘Chhota Bheem’), while other popular western ones like ‘Tom and Jerry’ and ‘Oggy and the Cockroaches’ are dubbed in Hindi. According to Madhu Bikash Khanal, a school psychologist, children are most susceptible to picking up new languages between the ages of two and nine. When they watch Hindi and English cartoons regularly, they gain some skills in these languages.

 There can be no doubt about the benefits of having more cartoons and children-centered shows in native tongues

 Some children get so addicted they refuse to eat without watching their favorite cartoons

But most Nepali children of this age group do not watch cartoons on television but rather on YouTube, often on their parents’ smartphones. Some get so addicted they refuse to eat without watching their favorite cartoons. That is a separate concern.

Getting to learn a popular language of a neighboring country, one which is a rising global power, is a “big plus”, says sociologist Chaitanya Mishra. He advises ditching our ethno-centricity that makes us look down on certain groups of people and languages.

Yet there can be no doubt about the benefits of having more cartoons and children-centered shows in native tongues. This will help children improve their Nepali, the country’s national language. More than that, it will boost other local tongues, all invaluable national treasures. So, the worry is not so much that Nepali children are hooked on Hindi cartoons. It is that many of them are now unhealthily glued to smartphones and are perhaps losing command of their native tongues.

 How Hindi is gaining many young speakers in Nepal

 In staffrooms of schools around Kathmandu, children replying to teachers’ questions in Hindi has become a topic of discussion. Anima Bhattarai, who has been teaching primary-level children for the past eight years, says she hears many children speaking to each other in Hindi

 At a grocery shop at Talchikhel, Lalitpur, Sarah Singh Katwal, 6, is begging with her mother to buy her a packet of ‘Motu Patlu’ chips. I lean down and ask her why she was insisting on that particular brand of chips and she says she loves watching the Indian sitcom “Motu Patlu” on Nickelodeon. “Do you know how to speak Hindi then?” I ask. “Mujhe aata hai” (“I know it”), she replies and laughs.She then talks excitedly about the cartoons she loves, namely “Chhota Bheem”, “Pokemon”, “Doraemon” and “Chota Singham”, all of which she watches in Hindi. She knows by heart which channels broadcast these shows. Her mother, Sarita Katwal, 39, wishes Sarah watched more English shows. Why, I ask? Because English is an international language, Katwal replies. “Sarah doesn’t just watch Hindi cartoons on TV, she watches cooking shows and Barbie doll shows with Hindi commentary on YouTube.” Katwal reckons her daughter perhaps understands Hindi better than she understands English.

Likewise, her son, Aarya Dhoj, 12, even has his own YouTube channel ‘Mello Tube’ where he uploads shots of him playing video games with English commentary. Aarya Dhoj, says his mother, learnt to give commentary from the Hindi shows he watches.

What about Nepali cartoons? Does Sarah like them? Sarah says she does not find Nepali cartoons enjoyable. Sarita, the mother, replies that the variety of cartoons available in Hindi is missing in Nepali.

Shrishan Raj Upadhyay, 7, can speak Hindi astonishingly fast, says his mother Devika Sharma. For the past 19 years Devika has worked as a primary school teacher. She is familiar with the idea of children liking Hindi cartoons: “Children in the school I teach in Gokarna also speak some Hindi.” But she has not heard anyone speaking Hindi as fast as her son. Sometimes he even uses complex Hindi words that she cannot comprehend.

Hot topic of Hindi

In staffrooms of schools around Kathmandu, children replying to teachers’ questions in Hindi has become a topic of discussion, according to primary school teachers. Anima Bhattarai, 29, who has been teaching primary-level children for the past eight years in Boudha, says she hears many children speaking to each other in Hindi. “Instead of sending their kids to play outside, parents these days prefer to give their children mobile phones on which they can watch Hindi cartoons and channels,” Bhattarai says.

A kindergarten teacher at the school she teaches shared that when she shows English rhymes to children, they ask her to show Hindi rhymes instead. Bhattarai says children may be attracted to Hindi and Nepali rhymes because they are easier to understand than English rhymes. Her son, Swikar, 7, can also speak Hindi fluently. “He even talks to family members in Hindi which is awkward so I try to show him more English cartoons.”

“Mai tumhe maar dunga” (‘I will kill you’) and “Areey buddhu” (‘Hey dumbo’) are common things that Anushka Shrestha, 20, who teaches Upper Kindergarteners, hears in the playground every day. “Children learn from other students and from cartoons,” she comments.

Ranjana Nepali, 38, another primary school teacher with 18 years of experience, says that children speak Hindi at her primary school in Nakkhu. “Even though we do not allow children to speak in Hindi, they do so unknowingly from time to time,” she shares. “When I started teaching 18 years ago, children did not speak in Hindi. They started doing so only when YouTube got popular. Before that, children usually watched cartoons in English like Tom and Jerry or Moomin.”

When she meets parents during admissions, they tell her their kids do not eat food until they are shown YouTube videos. “Children are usually more disciplined at school,” she shares.

Foreign language a plus

The most important thing is that children should be able to speak Nepali well, says Chaitanya Mishra, a sociologist. Learning regional languages of Nepal is important too. He says that the more languages we learn, the better it is for us. “We are becoming more cosmopolitan so learning new languages, especially a neighboring country’s language, is a plus for us. We grew up so ethno-centric, but now we have to learn to go beyond that or we will not progress,” he says.

Madhu Bikash Khanal, a school psychologist who has worked with school children for two decades, also thinks children learning other languages is a good thing. According to WHO and UNICEF, early childhood is a vital point for development in a person’s life. Children start to learn language by hearing and speaking when they are about 2. They also pick up a language quicker when they are between 2 to 6. In developmental psychology, according to Khanal, the critical age for language development is until around 9. After this, it gets harder to learn a new language.

But there also are downsides to watching these foreign cartoons. Khanal says many children have forgotten their mother tongue. Of late he has seen children watch more and more Hindi shows. This is not the proper way to learn a language, he adds, because without instructions they tend to mix up different languages.

Sunita Bhattarai, 57, from Baneshwor says that her three grandchildren keenly watch Hindi cartoons. Their mothers let them because then they can get on with their own chores. “No such cartoons during my time!” she laughs.

Khanal stresses the importance of having better Nepali cartoons. “It would be better still if there were cartoons in various regional languages of Nepal,” he says. “When children watch cartoons from other countries, they start emulating other cultures, while forgetting and failing to understand their own”.

Café Mocha at Budhanilkantha (yes, you read that right) is a proper, posh coffee shop that has opened its doors in an area where finding freshly ground filter coffee was impossible until now. Located on Budhanilkantha Road (opposite Big Mart), the café serves freshly-brewed coffee along with a variety of other non-alcoholic drinks including but not limited to mint lemonades, flavored lassis, milkshakes and mocktails. A limited option of alcohol is available too.

The tourists visiting the hills of Shivapuri and locals alike had long needed a change in their palates from regular restaurants selling instant coffee and momos. Café Mocha comes as the much-needed upgrade to dining in the Narayanthan/Budhanilkantha area. The regular crowd at Café Mocha all day long proves that.

THE MENU

Chef’s Special:

- Smashed avocado toast

- Sausage

croissants

- Cheesecake

Opening hours: 7 am to 8 pm

Location: Budhanilkantha

Cards: Not accepted

Meal for 2: Rs 1,200

Reservations: 981-2709797

If you walk on the streets of Thamel, you may have noticed there are no vehicles in three stretches of the road there. Free of honking, you can move about without any fear of getting hit by moving vehicles on these small roads, and to peacefully check out souvenir shops if you are so willing.

 In October 2017, the Kathmandu Metropolitan City had declared three stretches of Thamel vehicle-free. One of the lead campaigners to make that happen was KTM Walks, which was initiated by activists who wanted to create more livable cities. At the root of this campaign, which started in 2007, is community engagement.

 Kamana Manandhar, the leader of the campaign, says KTM Walks first recognized Thamel as an ideal vehicle- free area back in 2007. “It is a tourist area. To increase the number of tourists as well as its aesthetic value, and to boost economy and decrease pollution, we thought why not make it a vehicle-free zone?”

 In 2011, they did a research ‘Perception of multi-stakeholder in Thamel to make it a vehicle-free zone’. The results showed most locals wanted Thamel to be a vehicle-free zone. A major concern was where to park vehicles.

As vehicle-free Thamel is already a success story, they wish to introduce this idea in Kirtipur and Lalitpur as well

 When an area is declared vehicle- free, all individuals in that stretch are affected, says Manandhar. So KTM Walks divided households into various clusters, 100 in total, and conducted individual meetings. Most residents were in favor of a vehicle-free Thamel but were still doubtful. KTM Walks wanted to show them what would happen if Thamel was declared vehicle- free. On 22 Sept, 2014, they organized a vehicle-free day in Thamel. “We also did presentations in municipality office and traffic police office to show the benefits of vehicle-free zone,” says Manandhar.

 They then decided to make other identified areas like Kilagal, Basantapur, JP Marg, Saatghumti vehicle-free for a day, on the week marking the 2014 ‘World Car-Free Day’. There were interesting on-street events with the participation of the local community, youth groups, entrepreneurs and businesspeople. People found those days to be fun because various events were organized and children played on streets without fear of getting hit by vehicles, recalls Manandhar. “This is how we did the groundwork to prepare local people for a vehicle-free street. We were the ones to give this idea to Thamel Tourism Development Council and municipality.”

 Lakeside Pokhara was also announced vehicle-free towards the end of 2017. But after a few months, the decision was taken back because neither was there community engagement nor the level of stakeholder involvement seen in Thamel.

 KTM Walks even did a post-survey in Thamel after it was declared vehicle- free because “if more than 50 percent of people are unhappy, then the rule will be hard to sustain.” Most of them were happy. But the problem was that neighboring areas in Thamel were complaining that the roads in front of their houses should also be declared vehicle-free since traffic was now being diverted to those areas.

 Manandhar says that since vehicle- free Thamel is already a success story, they wish to introduce this idea in Kirtipur and Lalitpur too. Layakusa Street in Kirtipur has been identified as an ideal vehicle-free street. In January this year, KTM Walks volunteers met municipality personnel of these areas. “If you have a vehicle-free street, it is an opportunity for events to happen and for people to socialize and a community to bond,” says Manandhar.

 They have also done a pre-feasibility study and a perception survey of 400 people in an attempt to introduce vehicle- free zones in core areas of Lalitpur and Kirtipur. In Kirtipur, even though 71 percent of the respondents said traffic congestion was not a problem, 83 percent of those surveyed spoke of the need for a pedestrian zone.

 Likewise, 97 percent respondents from Lalitpur said traffic congestion was a problem, and 89 percent said a pedestrian zone is necessary. The respondents identified improved air quality, reduced noise pollution, better accessibility to road and greater business as main benefits of vehicle-free streets in Lalitpur and Kirtipur.