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Many women fast during the Nepali month of Shrawan. While some do so only on Mondays, others fast throughout the month. It is generally believed that married women fast for the longevity of their husband’s life and unmarried women do so to get a good husband (like Lord Shiva). But the reasons for fasting are changing, as the number of women who fast for improved mental and physical health continues to grow.

Sushmita Mahat, 23, who has been fasting in Shrawan since she was 12 says, “When I was growing up, I saw my mother and grandmother fast. They said it was for their husband’s long life and for our family’s prosper­ity.” Mahat, who has been living in Australia for the past six years, still fasts on Mondays during Shrawan. “Personally I fast because it gives me a feeling of peace, and I feel spiritu­ally fulfilled.”

Nutritionist and lifestyle modi­fication expert Sonal Talegaonkar backs Mahat’s claim. “The aim is not to torture yourself but to detoxify your body and learn self-control,” she says. “If you follow a proper diet during your fast, you will feel satis­fied and emerge healthier.”

There are many women who fast to lose weight. However, for those who do so Talegaonkar warns about the post-Shrawan effects on the body. “While it is true that weight loss is quick when you fast, when your fast ends, you could regain all the weight you lost,” she warns. Therefore she advises a disciplined eating regime post-Shrawan as well.

On the other hand, many women are unaware of how fasting affects their health. Salu Singh, 24, shares, “I am not fasting during Shrawan because I am not religious. Addi­tionally, I am unaware of how fasting helps my body.” However, she is interested in understanding the sci­ence behind fasting. “I am sure that fasting during Shrawan is not just about religion.”

Nutritionist Talegaonkar lists oth­er health benefits of Shrawan fast­ing. Shrawan falls smack dab in the middle of monsoon. Rain brings with it many water-borne diseases like hepatitis, cholera and gastritis. “When you eat vegetarian food, you automatically have lesser chances of getting infected. Moreover, accord­ing to Ayurveda, the immunity pow­er in people is low during Shrawan. So it is wise to avoid oily, spicy and non-vegetarian food,” she says.

Some married working women cite their heavy work schedule as a reason for not being able to fast. “I am usually busy from morning till evening. Even though I want to fast, my schedule does not permit it,” says Lakshmi Raj Budhathoki, 26, who has been married for three years. However, the ways women fast vary. Some fast without eating or drinking anything, while others fast by consuming only fruits and drinking water. Talegaonkar also says that at the end of the fasting period opting for fruits and drinking a lot of water is better than binging on fried and starchy food.

If you are fasting, Talegaonkar suggests you consume buttermilk, low-fat curd, raita, fruits, green tea, dry fruits, salads and vegetables (especially high-water cucumber) as they all keep energy levels high while being easy on the calories. Light and healthy food like these ensure your metabolic rate doesn’t change drastically. While fasting, your diet schedule gets disturbed and you may develop constipation. Talegaonkar advises drinking at least 8-10 glasses of water every day. Her easy advice: keep it light and eat healthy right through the year.

Before the country became a republic in 2006, cross-dress­ing was considered illegal under various laws against ‘public immorality’. But the practice was legalized in 2007 and a ‘third gen­der’ besides ‘male’ and ‘female’ option given to those applying for Nepali citizenship. Yet transgenders still face hurdles to fully embrace their identity. Many Nepali trans-women (male-to-female transsexuals) dream of having enough money to travel to Thailand to undergo complicated and costly surgery to fully transform into women; a few of them have been successful. But, technically, there are no trans-men (female-to-male transsexuals) in Nepal, even though some like to identify them­selves as such.

Elyn Bhandari

Elyn Bhandari, 27, was born and raised in Kathmandu. He always knew that he was different but lived as a male till he graduated from high school. “I then met a friend who interned with the Blue Diamond Society. She brought me here for counseling and orientation.” Bhandari was 21 when he found that he identified as a trans-man, and not a lesbian. Just like Bhandarai, lots of trans-men initially misidentify them­selves as lesbians.

“I used social media to open up. Many of my friends were dis­approving,” he says. “Ironically, I had to lose many people in my life when I finally found myself.” Currently employed at the Blue Diamond Society, Bhandari says the place is a family. “My fami­ly was totally against me when I told them I am a man trapped in a woman’s body. But this place gave me the support that I needed. They understood me and helped me understand myself.”

Bhakti Shah

Bhakti Shah, 32, transitioned also into manhood on joining the Blue Diamond Society. Shah knew he was attracted towards females when he was in his early teens. He considers himself considerably luckier than his friends as he didn't have to face much family pressure to embrace the female identity he was born with.

“Before I came out I was scared of what people might think. I felt trapped inside my own body,” he says. “But when I came out I real­ized there are other people like me as well.” When the country has acknowledged the identity of all its citizen, says Shah, there is no need to hide your identity any more.

Shah has had a female partner for 10 years now. “Though god witnessed our bond, we want to our marriage to be legalized and nor­malized," Shah says. “About time the gov­ernment legalized marriage among the LGBTI community.”

Akanshya Timalsina

Born in Morang, Akan­shya Timalsina,25, was very small when she start­ed noticing that she was dif­ferent from other males. But she had to wait till she was 18 before she came across the web­site of the Blue Diamond Society. At long last, the non-profit organization working for LGBTI (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) rights would help her identify herself as a transgender.

“Before contacting the society, I had never heard about transgen­ders,” she says. “But that is exactly what I was.” At 24, she underwent a top surgery in Bangkok, followed by a sex change surgery a year later. “It was expensive. I had to spend 5-6 years of my savings for the opera­tion,” she says. “But I regret nothing. I feel like a bird that has just been freed from a cage. I am no longer plagued by the guilt that I am in a body that is not mine.”

Sudeep Gautam

Sudeep Gautam, 27, too always knew. At a tender age of five, when all his friends would play with dolls and wear dresses, he would cry because his parents forced him to do the same. Sudeep never dressed as a female even before he identified himself as a trans-man. He was able to understand his attraction towards females and inclination towards male identity only when entered his teens.

“I had to work like a man in order to look after my family even before I identified as a trans-man,” Gau­tam says. But he had to leave his hometown for the fear that his par­ents would marry him off to a man. His sister then told him about the Blue Diamond Society, and his life changed. He has identified himself as a trans-man since 2011. “Although my biological parents brought me into this world, it was Blue Diamond that made me who I am today. I owe it everything,” he says.

“We fight humiliation everywhere we go. But I’m going to fight nonethe­less, fight for my community till the day I die,” he says. After all, “we’re all different, we are all equals.”

When the first electric guitar was invented in the early 1930s, no one had an idea about the rev­olution it would herald in the field of music. From its hum­ble beginning as an ingenious contraption that used electro­magnetic induction to sense the vibration of strings and send signals to the amplifier to produce sound, the electric guitar has developed into an indispensable instrument for any kind of music, from blues to rock n’ roll to heavy metal and even world music. Hundreds of guitar compa­nies around the world now produce thousands of models of electric guitars and in this rather competitive market, a Nepali guitar brand is trying to create a name for itself—first in Nepal and then all over the world, the owners say.

Sahana Guitars, formed in 2012, is the brainchild of Sagun Bhattarai, a certified char­tered accountant who com­pleted his ACCA in the UK and brought back not only a CA degree but also guitar-making skills he acquired from Brit­ish luthiers. Bhattarai, a sci­ence student before he joined ACCA as well as a passion­ate guitarist, briefly worked as a Chartered Accountant in Nepal before deciding to switch career and do some­thing that really inspired him. But he had a difficult choice to make: should he make solar panels because load-shedding was at its height at the time or should he make guitars. He picked the latter, and with Apurwa Raymajhi, a tourism entrepreneur and a passion­ate musician as a partner, Sah­ana Guitars (Sanskrit word for music) was born.

“We’ve come a long way since we started,” says Ray­majhi, who also looks after Sahana’s only outlet at Star Mall, Putalisadak. “We spent almost four years in research and development and started selling only in 2015. We got good response from Nepali musicians from the start.” Raymajhi admits that Sahana Guitars is still in a learning phase but already its produc­tion models are at par with some of the best known guitar brands in the world.

“There are companies which have been manufac­turing guitars for decades and have spent millions on R&D but no one has been able to make the perfect guitar,” adds Raymajhi. “We are simi­larly upgrading our capacities according to our customers’ needs and hoping to manu­facture the best guitars for the local market.”

Right now it takes Sahana around 45-60 days to make a batch of 10 guitars. The guitar makers are planning to upgrade the machiner­ies and factory workflow to bring down the production time to 30 days. All the wood involved in crafting guitars are locally sourced. Sahana uses mahogany, ash, alder, rosewood and walnut to make different models of guitars. It is also researching a Nepali subspecies of maple, one of the most revered woods for guitar manufacturing. With young luthiers Shirsak Subedi and Apurva Chaudhary com­pleting its small team, Sahana also makes its own guitar pick­ups with materials outsourced from abroad along with other essential imported hardware.

Among the different mod­els Sahana produces, the ‘Nyauli’, ‘Who Chill,’ and the ‘Maha Chill’ are the most popular, Raymajhi informs. All of Sahana’s guitar models are named after indigenous birds of Nepal. “Birds are the symbols of freedom and we also wanted to promote the fact the Nepal is a home to a diverse species of birds.”

Apart from the regular production models, Sahana customizes guitars accord­ing to the buyers’ prefer­ence. Different colors, pickup combinations, personal­ized inlays can be selected to customize the available models. Also, Sahana builds fully customized guitars from scratch, with options in body shape, wood, neck, pickup and all accessories. Famous Nepali artists like Sunny Manandhar of Albatross, Satish Sthapit of Newaz, Sarad Shrestha of Tumbleweed and Jimi Blues of The Midnight Riders have ordered custom guitars from Sahana and rate the company highly.

“Pricewise, we are offering guitars starting at Rs 50,000, which would normally cost around $1,200 [over Rs 120,000] in the international market,” Raymajhi says. “That said, it is still expensive for a beginner and we are trying to further cut costs.” To do so Sahana plans to increase production in the near future. With interested customers contacting them from all over Nepal, India and even the US, mass production does not seem a distant prospect.

Space is launching its first album entitled ‘Eye/I’. Quite an unusual name, you may think, but then Space is an unusual band. Describing their genre as ‘rock’ or ‘post-rock’, their music ranges from the soothing, right through to the jarring in a style Mit­shushi Shahi, the vocalist, calls ‘screaming’. Featured on two numbers, Space and Abstrophone, Shahi brings a metal-like expression of frus­tration to the audience. In this way, the album will appeal to metal lovers and rock lovers, as well as those who like more poetic lyrics and gentler sounds. Their other vocalist, Nikita Shres­tha, has a strong and expres­sive range, particularly on her favourite track, I, which she describes as ‘soothing’. With the topic of hope, this track was about Shrestha’s own personal experiences and her struggle to overcome hardships. It should be noted that while the majority of the band members play in other bands, Shrestha performs solo at times and has been involved in such events as Sofar.

Space was formed in 2016 when friends came together through their love of music. The current line-up has changed a little from those days and now also includes Rabindra Maharjan on flute, Bikee Bajra on drums, and Ritavrat Joshi on bass.

Completing the line-up is Riken Maharjan and Rojib Shahi, both on guitar. The name—Space—came from an EP of the same name put together by Maharjan. The name remained but the genre changed from elec­tronic to its current rock/experimental style.

One friend missing from the line-up is someone who used to jam with the band before it took shape as Space. The track Abstrophone is ded­icated to his memory. The music had been composed at that time, but the lyrics have been specifically written to commemorate his short life and that friendship.

Talking about Space on his radio show, radio jockey Ray­mon Das Shrestha said “there is only one word to describe (Space)—amazing! I am ready to buy their album and put it on repeat mode. The new gen­eration is experimenting and coming up with new sounds.”

“We are so lucky to be able to launch our album at ‘25 Hours’ this week. This is a self-funded album so it means even more to us,” says Shahi. With Space’s new tracks and the other acts on the stage, namely, ASM, The Act and Kamero, can you afford to miss it?

Tickets are limited and only available at the following out­lets: Tone Music Store, Calm, Beers and Cheers, Planet Music and Namaste Coffee. Rs 400 or Rs 600 with Space’s new album. No door sales. Eye/I will also be available for sale on the night and as a download in the near future.

(Launch at 3:30 pm Satur­day, June 30 at 25 Hours Rock Nights, Tangalwood)