Submit your Article

Shristi Pahari and Nabina Subedi came up with the idea of a period subscription box, a monthly care package for females, in 2017 as they were studying in India to become chartered accountants. When they returned to Nepal in November 2017 after a five-year stay in Delhi, they became busy with their jobs and could not find any time for this business. So they both quit their jobs in October 2018. Since then, they have been investing their time and energy in their venture ‘The She Thing’, which has already delivered around 120 menstrual kits in Kathmandu. This is the first period box delivery service in Nepal.

 “There is a subscription model for many things in the world such as newspapers. But for something that women have to deal with every month, there isn’t any in Nepal,” Subedi says. Business has been steady; they sold around 20 boxes in the first month. Pahari says, “We are not focusing on making profits for now. We are not even expecting a stable income for the next two years. We first want to build a loyal customer base. We know it will take at least two years for our business to become stable.”

They say that the main challenge for this business in Nepal is the lack of menstrual hygiene awareness and the unavailability of some menstrual hygiene products. “Here, women try to get through their period with Rs 100. People question why they should pay several times for this box (read on). Menstruation means pads in Nepal. But it is more than that. Proper menstrual hygiene products are equally essential,” says Subedi. Pahari adds, “There is a chapter on menstruation in Grade 8 in Nepal, but nowadays many girls start getting their periods from Grade 6 or 7. In our society, menstruation is still a taboo subject. We want to make a girl’s experience of getting her first period to be as comfortable as possible.”

The two women rue the absence in Nepal of even basic menstrual hygiene items—such as a pee-buddy (which allows women to stand and pee), pain relief patches (which relieve pain from period cramps), period panties (which help block leakage), and instant period stain removers. They import most of these items from India, paying high taxes and transportation costs, to include them in their period box.

Because of this, the box might seem expensive to some. A normal box for a normal period flow is priced at Rs 650, a heavy box for a heavy flow at Rs 1,199 and a “red fairy” box for a girl’s first period at Rs 2,500. The items in the boxes are divided into five categories—sanitary napkins, surprise gifts, menstrual hygiene items, snacks and chocolates, and health and beauty. Moreover, the theme for each month is different. “For January, it was ‘New beginning’ and for February, it is ‘Valentine’. Basic items remain the same, but we include surprises every month,” says Pahari.

Asked if they have thought about including tampons or menstrual cups in the box, Pahari says, “We probably won’t include menstrual cups in our box, since the idea of a box is mostly based on providing sanitary pads every month. But we may sell the cups separately.”

 Their target customers are women such as college students and professionals “who don’t have time to pamper themselves during their period days”, according to Pahari. But as many as 30 percent of their customers are men. “Our first customer was a man who bought a box for his wife. We don’t have many regular subscribers now, just around 10, maybe because periods can be irregular, but we do have quite a few repeat customers,” says Subedi. “We keep a note of the expected period date of women and deliver the box a few days ahead. On average, we send a parcel or two every day. And we also do immediate deliveries.”

 Pahari says they faced a problem in categorizing their business while registering their company. “We could not find the category ‘Sanitary napkins’ or anything menstruation- related while applying for a Permanent Account Number (PAN). We were suggested that we register under cosmetics, which we did.”

 They don’t have a store yet. They operate out of a room they’ve recently rented and they get business queries on social-networking sites such as Facebook and Instagram. Their long-term goal is to manufacture in Nepal all menstrual hygiene items in the box.

 Facebook has been full of the lat­est challenge. From people, to cityscapes and landscapes. Some poignant—the polar bear, gaunt from lack of food; forests after the loggers have passed through. Some encour­aging—cities that have taken to install­ing vertical gardens; empowerment movements for females finally making strides (in some countries). Some fun­ny—a picture of a mud road in rural Nepal, still a mud road 10 years on. Thinking I might join the challenge I looked through pictures of me 10 years ago. Not sure whether they fall under poignant, encouraging, or fun­ny… so moving quickly on… In the past 10 years there has been a lot of physical changes in Kathmandu that are clear to all of us. The most obvious being the amount of traffic now on the road and the correspond­ing amount of pollution in the air. If someone dropped in from Mars they would believe Kathmanduites’ faces were made up of cloth or paper appliances. Ten years ago only a few foreigners wore masks and even they were most likely those who suffered from allergies.

Buildings are another obvious change. I am surprised at how many tall buildings are suddenly appear­ing, almost overnight, around town. Partly surprised at how things can get down quickly when there is a mind to do so, and partly surprised because have we forgotten April 2015 already? Cafes and restaurants are opening at a rate I cannot keep up with! Last night I had dinner with an old friend in the Radisson Hotel. The number one reason for going there was for the central heating, but I reminisced that the last time I was there for dinner was with her mother many years ago. In the days when there really wasn’t many restaurants around Lazimpat. Now this area is overflowing with places to eat. Some good, some bad, and how do they all get enough cus­tomers to make ends meet? (And that’s another story.)

But some things never seem to change. Public transport for instance. The physical look of the buses might improve but the idea of cramming as many passengers in as possible has not. Nor has the mentality of a few who see this as an opportunity for petty theft or not-so-petty sexual abuse. I remember a time, more than 10 years ago, when people travelling on buses were friendly, and respectful of women (and foreigners!).

And also a more recent (correct me if I am wrong) belief that trees and greenery are a bad thing. This one I really don’t understand. This has not happened within the past 10 years, but definitely within the past two decades. It is natural spaces within this small city will close up as the population grows. But shouldn’t there be a gov­ernment and public will to preserve or create areas of greenery as both a method of fighting pollution and as a place for the general public to relax and enjoy nature? The view from my apartment has changed (See photos). Ten years (9 actually) ago I overlooked small but green fields, alternating rice and vegetables with the changing sea­sons. Post 2015 the landowners seem to have become disheartened. Having decided it is more lucrative to rent the land out as home to temporary construction workers, they have also let the rest of the land grow brown and tired, with every appearance of turning into a rubbish tip.

To end on a more positive note, I have noticed in the past few years, young people (ie under 35) are chang­ing as their world has opened up with internet access. They are taking up the baton for the environment, safer roads, and simple respect of others. So here’s to the next 10 years, when we hope there will be more positive changes as today’s youth become tomorrow’s change makers.

How many Nepali bands can brag of being one-of-a-kind to take the stage at musical events? Not many. And how many of those bands have a lineup of 10-12 proficient musicians playing at the same time? Only one! That is ‘Kathmandu Cats and the Dirty Boogie Brass Band’ for you. We’ll just call them Cats for now, to save this piece from unneces­sary elongation. But let us take a moment to take the names of the deserving artists that form the Cats: Deep Rana on guitars/vocals, Sajiv Shrestha on bass, Dipen­dra Man Singh on keyboards, Prajwal Bhattarai on vocals, Anish Bhandari on drums and back vocals, Basanta Sunam on trumpets, Rojib Shahi on Alto Sax, DB Pariyar on trom­bones and Rajkumar Shrestha on tenor sax.

Whew! That was tiring. But rest assured, watching and lis­tening to them live is just the opposite. These sharp-dressed men jump, jive and boogie to make you miss your dancing shoes, if you haven’t got them on already. With the regular drums, bass, guitars, keys and vocals, their lively horn sec­tion adds to the ‘dancebility’ of the music, as they perform within the broad genres of ‘roots/rockabilly/ psychobilly/ neo-swing/surf/blues and rock n’ roll’.

It was the brainchild of Rana and Bhandari, who played together in a band called HMG Ministry of Rock back when Nepal was still under His Maj­esty’s Government! (Rana is also a founding member of the Nepali rock band The Midnight Riders.) The duo got together to make some unprecedented music in Nepal and roped in talented, professional musicians to form the Cats in June 2016. The band’s debut perfor­mance in the same month hit Kathmandu with a wave so big that the Cats were surfing over all big and small venues through 2017. Besides local bars, pubs and lounges, the Cats played at the Nepal Music Festival, which is one of the biggest music festivals in the country, Hits FM Music Awards and the famous Namaste TV Show broadcast on Nepal Television—all in a couple of years’ time.

"The name was inspired by Brian Setzer’s band The Stray Cats and we found Cats had a nice ring to it when used with ‘Kathmandu’" Deep Rana, guitarist/vocalist

“The band name was inspired by Brian Setzer’s band The Stray Cats and we found Cats had a nice ring to it, when used beside our hometown Kathmandu,” says the front-man Rana. “We’re a hard-hitting show band—a fusion of a rock ensemble accompanied by a horn sec­tion.” The Dirty Boogie Brass Band then refers to the horn section which is continuously laying down the dirtiest, sexi­est boogie tunes. For a Nepali listener, or even an expat roaming the city’s water­ing holes to find some good music, the sound of tastefully overdriven guitars, phat bass lines, rhythm-steady drums accompanied by melodious keys and a full-fledged brass section is a treat for both eyes and ears.

The only problem is finding a venue big enough to accom­modate the troupe and also a sizable rehearsal space for them to jam to prepare for shows. “It sure is difficult at times and having a full house for rehearsals is a rarity. But we all make it happen because we love what we do and each of us is passionate about giv­ing the audience an unforget­table experience,” Rana says. “A show they will remember and talk about for a long time. That’s what we’re all aiming for.” The Cats love to play at music festivals and big clubs with big stages but give them an intimate crowd of music lovers, and they’ll play anywhere.

The calendar for 2018 was a little light for the Cats, with a few line-up changes. But they’re back with a new and improved line-up and already getting bookings all over the town. The Kathmandu Cats and the Dirty Boogie Brass Band are also one of the artists performing at The Annapurna Express Music Festival happening at Tan­galwood on Feb 9. They’re opening the show, from 2 to 3 pm, so you might want to grab those tickets early.

As the latest Corruption Percep­tion Index of Transparency International bears out, Nepali bureaucracy is notoriously cor­rupt—and slow. There must not be a single adult Nepali who has not been frustrated with the seemingly end­less hassles of getting just about any­thing done in a government office. Turns out, foreigners are not spared either, as the first foreign couple to register their marriage in Nepal would readily agree. Australian national Wayne Allan Logue (51) and his Indonesian wife Farida Sari Kusu­maningrum (43) describe the ordeal of getting their marriage registered in Nepal.

 A rental agreement for tourists was something neither they nor their Nepali legal team had heard of

“We couldn’t get married in Indonesia because that would require me to take up Islam,” explains Wayne. Nor could Farida easily get an Australian visa. “The other option was Hong Kong because both of us could easily get a visa, but then the overall cost of getting married there turned out to be too high.” The couple opted to come to Nepal, where getting a visa was easy and wedding costs manageable. Lit­tle did they know what was waiting for them in Nepal.

Among countless other has­sles they had to face, a court asked the couple to produce a rent­al agreement with the homestay they were staying in. Now a rental agreement for tourists was something neither they nor their Nepali legal team had heard of before. For this they first had to get a PAN number and an official stamp of the homestay. “There were complications every­where,” says Wayne.

At the ward office, they were asked to fork out Rs 5,100 each for staying in their ward as foreigners!

Farida remembers the day when the couple were asked to fill the marriage registration forms, with the names of their fathers and grandfathers. “In Indonesia, we are only asked to give our mothers’ name,” Farida says. “Neither of us could understand what the names of our grandfathers had to do with our marriage.”

The trials and tribulations of the first foreign couple to register their marriage in Nepal

The notoriously tardy and cor­rupt bureaucracy of Nepal frus­trates not just natives but also many foreigners, especially when they have to get some paperwork done from a government office. “It was an epic process with end­less pitfalls,” is how Australian cit­izen Wayne Allan Logue describes the three-week-long ordeal to get his marriage to Indonesian citizen Farida Sari Kusumaningrum reg­istered in Nepal. In the end, the couple were successful in register­ing their marriage, thus becoming the first foreign couple to do so in Nepal. Wayne, 51, and Farida, 43, found each other on an online dating site in July 2017, and after being together for a couple of years, decided to put a legal stamp on their relationship. They had to get married by January 2019 for Farida to be able to accom­pany Wayne to China on a spouse visa. Wayne is taking up a teaching position at a Chinese school.

“We couldn’t get married in Indo­nesia because that would require me to take up Islam,” explains Wayne. Nor could Farida easily get an Aus­tralian visa to get married there. “The other option was Hong Kong because both of us could easily get a visa, but then the overall cost of getting married there turned out to be too high.” Thus the couple opted to come to Nepal, where getting a visa was easy and wed­ding costs manageable. They would also get to see a new country in the process.

“So we planned to get married here. I was already trying to commu­nicate with lawyers here even before we came,” says Wayne. But that was just the beginning of their ordeal. The legal agencies they contact­ed were not very responsive. Once in Nepal, they looked for a legal advisor who could help them get a marriage certificate from the Kath­mandu District Court (KDC). They then came in contact with Trilegal Nepal, a law firm that helped them get legally wed in Nepal.

Impediments to marriage

It was not an easy ride though. The couple had to go through three weeks of excruciatingly complex legal processes to get married. They had all the documents they thought were necessary to apply for a marriage certificate—their legal visas, the compulsory 15 days of stay in Nepal and a ‘Letter of no impediment to marriage’ from their respective countries. They were also asked to provide the court with translated marriage acts from their native countries, which they also did. But that was not enough, they later found out.

The court then asked the cou­ple to produce a rental agreement with the homestay they were stay­ing in. Now a rental agreement for tourists was something neither they nor their Nepali legal team had heard of before. For this they first had to get a PAN number and official stamp of the homestay. “There were complications every­where,” says Wayne.

“Our homestay didn’t have a stamp and I was running around trying to get a rubber stamp made for them. Then there were lengthy rides and even longer days at var­ious ward offices which seemed to have no clue what to do!” After much confusion about which ward to go to for their documents (the homestay owners seemed to have no clue either), they finally located the right ward office. But the battle was not won—not yet. At the ward office, they were asked to fork out Rs 5,100 each for staying in their ward as foreigners! They were dumbfounded. Hadn’t they already paid their visa fees for the very purpose?

“Every office we went to, includ­ing the court, tried to make Wayne and Farida cough up money under different pretexts,” says Arya Singh, the lawyer from Trilegal Nepal who helped the couple get mar­ried. “Since it was a first-of-its-kind case in Nepal, we realized that our laws and rules are not foreign­er-friendly. Instead of simplifying the process, we have regulations whose sole purpose seem to be to extort foreigners.” Singh says that although legal requirements like ‘a letter of no impediment to marriage’ and valid visas are import­ant, there is no logic in making tour­ists go to ward offices for a marriage permit. “Most tourists book their hotels and guest houses online and only get bills and receipts in return. So why force them to get rental agreements?”

Brokers in court

Singh also complains of the high level of corruption in government offices, especially when a foreign­er steps in for any work. Wayne and Farida had backs turned on them right through the process, as they were unfamiliar with the “under-the-table” system. Once, the physical copy of the marriage act from Australia that Wayne had submitted was declared missing, stalling the legal process. The doc­ument was later found in the same file folder that had been originally submitted. “From the ward offic­es to the district court, they were given unnecessary trouble in the name of following the law,” Singh says. “There came a point when I couldn’t leave them alone even for a while in the government offices. When I had to, I told them not to pay a dime to anyone who comes asking for money to get something done. As a Nepali, it is shameful for me to admit that there are brokers inside the district court.”

Farida remembers the day when the couple were asked to fill the marriage registration forms, with the names of their fathers and grandfathers. “In Indonesia, we are only asked to give our moth­ers’ name,” Farida says. “With due respect to the laws of the country, neither of us could figure out what the names of our grand­fathers had anything to do with our marriage.”

The couple also recall the final day of their adventure. “We were called inside the room and made to sign some papers and put our thumb­prints on them,” Wayne says. “We did as told and were happy that it is finally over. We’re married. But no! We are then asked to go to another room for more signatures. Then we had to wait for a while at the court, with hand-cuffed criminals all around us. Following this, we were summoned to yet another room for more signatures.”

All said and done, the couple don’t harbor any resentment against the Nepali bureaucracy. In fact, they now find the whole ordeal funny and something to laugh at. Almost half of their two months in Nepal was spent getting legally married and the adventure will surely last them a lifetime. “The people at the court told me that we were the first foreign couple to get married in Nepal and we were not surprised,” Farida says.

“The long drives to the various ward offices, the days spent among criminals at the district court, the never-ending series of signatures and formalities, even as we were thrilled about one of our lives’ biggest decisions—we will never for­get,” Wayne says. When asked if they made the marriage process easier for other foreign couples, “We might have,” they reply in unison. “But we definitely won’t recommend it”.