Submit your Article

“Although my passport says I’m a British citi­zen, at heart I’m still a Nepali,” says 39-year-old Binod Baral. Baral is a restaurateur, social entrepreneur and consultant chef who runs a restaurant called ‘Mo:mo and Roti’ in Wembley, London. He also operates a catering and consultancy business there called “Spice Pundit.” But “Mo:mo and Roti is my main business,” Baral says.

“I sell authentic Nepali dishes. You won’t get naan or tikka masala or tandoori here, unlike most restaurants that sell ‘roti’,” Baral says. “You rather get only authentic Nepali food and around 100 varieties of momos.”

He was only 18 when Baral, who originally hails from Pokhara, first set foot on English soil as a kitchen assistant. In just over two decades, his passion for cook­ing and hard-work has turned him into a successful hospital­ity businessman in England, and a proud member of the Nepali diaspora.

After serving Nepali cui­sine in London for all these years, Baral now wants to globalize Nepali food. Along with his Nepali peers from all over the world, Baral is campaigning for better promotion of Nepali food. He is also writing a Nepali cookbook, which he hopes will be a simple guide to Nepali-style cooking for everyone interested.

“Nepali cooking is no rocket science,” he says. “Our cuisine is just about the right heat, the right amount of spices and a lot of love and simplicity.” Given Nepal’s rich and diverse culture, Baral believes Nepali cuisine has the poten­tial to be as famous as Chinese and Indian food. He thinks lack of research and poor promotion have denied Nepali cuisine its due popularity.

"Gastronomic tourism is when the food and drink become the reason to visit a particular place. Nepal has that possibility"

Binod Baral, restaurateur, social entrepreneur and consultant chef

With almost a dozen invest­ments and involvements in Nepali hospitality business, Baral says “food tourism” could be a wonderful addi­tion to the list of promotional products for the Nepal Tour­ism Year 2020 campaign. “My maternal family are from Burma and their main occu­pation is hospitality business. I can proudly say cooking is in my blood,” he says.

In Nepal, Baral is involved in hospitality projects in Kath­mandu, Galchhi, Malekhu, Pokhara, Chitwan, Bandi­pur, Trishuli and Nuwakot. International exposure and thorough understand­ing of the food of ethnic communities around the country has convinced Baral of the country’s “gastronomic tourism” potential.

“Gastronomic tourism is when the food and drink become the reason to visit a particular place. Nepal has that possibility,” he says. “Our varied geography yield a variety of produces and each ethnic community has its own way of cook­ing. We have cooking styles dating back thousands of years, from the time of Bud­dha or Ramayana.”

Giving tourists a chance to eat at and experience tradi­tional Nepali kitchens can be a central feature of tourism promotion, Baral adds. Indig­enous communities like the Tharu, Gurung, Rai, Limbu and Newar have their own unique style of cooking with their own set of recipes and organic ingredients. “This may be of great curiosity to tourists who will want to know how they are prepared and how they taste,” he says.

Also involved in culinary education, Baral emphasizes the need for Nepali chefs to “learn, educate, train, pro­mote, inspire and celebrate” Nepali cuisine to give it global recognition. Baral has registered the Asian Culi­nary Academy in London, which he hopes will create a bridge between culinary arts of Nepal and the UK. The academy will create courses in partnership with Nepali cook­ing schools and train aspir­ing students from the two countries on Nepali and other Asian cuisines.

Famous businessman, media personality and pilot Captain Rameshwar Thapa has come out with a simple yet riveting account of his involvement as a chopper pilot in the decade-long Mao­ist insurgency. Because the war ended over a decade ago, its viciousness has faded from our memory. But we cannot afford to forget an era that has massively shaped contempo­rary Nepali polity and society. Barud Mathi Uddaa (‘Flying over explosives’) is a note­worthy addition to Nepal’s insurgency-related literature.

The book provides glimpses of the various battles fought between the then Maoist rebels and the state security forces. Although Thapa was a commercial pilot, he was sought after by the security forces to mount rescue oper­ations and send in reinforce­ments. Despite the danger inherent in the work, Thapa was ever ready to fly.

The book also traces Tha­pa’s journey from a poor rural family in Kavre to Rus­sia where he trained to be a helicopter pilot. Thapa then went on to become one of the most successful businessmen in the country. He even had a role to play in bringing top leaders together to reach the 16-point agreement in June 2015, which paved the way for the constitution’s prom­ulgation.

The book will be of inter­est to academics and to gen­eral readers alike. An English translation of the book is also set to hit the shelves within a year.

Rickshaws and motorbikes, temples and ultra-modern buildings, ancient statues and mod­ern graffiti, all come together in a collective display of pop-art at the Bikalpa Art Centre (BAC), Pulcho­wk. Digital images of collapsing houses supported by beams, mixed-media installation of children smiling on the back of a rickshaw, a panoramic collage of the chaotic life in Makhan Tole with the Taleju Bhawani temple in the backdrop reflect the voices of the people who live in the city.

“Kathmandu, My Fascination” by artist Prabod Shrestha is the result of his post-earthquake wan­derings around the city. The exhibition displays the lifestyle of modern Kathmandu, often con­necting the old and the new: the juxtaposition of ultra-modern buildings and pottery shops around Asan; the emerging coffee culture compared to the local tea shops; the chaotic life around Maru Ganesh in contrast to a woman sitting calmly in a corner smoking and selling vegetables.

The photos were a way to work through the earthquake trauma, and to reconnect with his childhood. After losing his gallery in the 2015 earthquake, Shrestha started wandering the streets of Kathmandu, taking pictures from his phone. “Despite the big changes I still recognized the old city that shaped me when I grew up. Sometimes we are overwhelmed by the pollution and the busy life of Kathmandu but sooner or later we recon­nect with its core and its vibrancy,” says Shrestha. “Earthquake was the main inspiration behind these pictures. I wanted to capture people’s lives after such a big disaster.”

The artist uses silk screen to transfer the pictures to the paper. Silk screen painting is an ancient tech­nique that is these days mainly used for printing images and designs on t-shirts, tote bags and other materials. It is rarely used for photographs.

He has worked as a freelancer with different advertising agencies and film producers to create award-winning (motion) graphics and designs. He plays with different graphic styles but mainly wants to show what makes the city so timeless and vibrant. Curator Saroj Mahato from the BAC calls the work “subtle and contemporary”.

The exhibition at the BAC runs from Dec 8 to Jan 15.

Solo Woman Travel Challenge or Swo-Yatra, a competition which gives women a chance to win a grant for their solo travel anywhere in Nepal, gets between 400 and 500 applications every year. An initiative of NepaliTravellers, an NGO, 42 women have both won grants and traveled solo through this four-year-old competition. It lets women come up with their own itinerary and gives them short self-defense and first-aid training before they embark on their trip. With so many applicants, it is clear that more and more Nepali women want to travel alone. APEX tried to find out what else these women are looking for. In 2018, 417 women applied for this competition, 28 of whom spoke to us. As many as 16 viewed this competition as a way to convince their guardians to let them travel on their own. “My parents never let me go anywhere alone. Even though Nepali society has progressed on many fronts, it still has not changed much in terms of giving women more freedom. In a way, this competition was a chal­lenge to myself and the society I live in,” says Prasamsa Shrestha, 23, an applicant this year.

Menuka Gurung, 24, is one of the Swo-Yatra 2018 winners. She recently returned home after completing her Bachelor’s in Thailand, but is finding it difficult to adjust in Kathmandu. “My parents would not let me travel alone anywhere. I did not need anyone’s per­mission to travel around when I was in Thailand. It’s been a year and a half since I am back in Kathmandu. Only through this competition was I allowed to travel solo,” she says. And now that she has finally traveled alone in Nepal, she hopes her parents would give her more freedom in making future travel decisions.

 Definitely not crazy

Asmita Rijal, 20, who participated in the competition this year, says apply­ing to this competition helped change her parents’ perspective on women solo travelers. “The sheer number of women applying convinced them that I’m not the only ‘crazy woman’ who wants to go around the country alone.”

Jason Shah, co-founder of NepaliTrav­ellers, says that this was not meant to be a woman-empowerment project. “We do not teach women how to travel solo. We only help those who already want to do so.”

Shah says he wanted to create a big impact with the small resource at his dis­posal. “There are many women who have later traveled alone with their own funds after they won the competition. Each year, videos of women traveling solo are uploaded and parents watch those inspir­ing videos and learn about travelers. Such videos let them know that their daughter is not the only one traveling solo and that there is a support system in place.”

Shah adds that if the applicants had everything they needed to travel alone, they would not have applied. “I think most of them are looking for money. But even those who do not win become inspired after going through the application process and meeting like-minded women.”

He says that parents, after seeing the month-long application process involving multiple rounds of interviews, understand that their daughters are not acting on a whim but have a well-thought-out plan.

 An initiative of NepaliTravellers, 42 women have both won grants and traveled solo through this competition

Will she be safe?

Menuka Devkota, 23, another applicant this year, agrees. “If I had won, I would have been allowed to travel alone. The competition allowed me to convince my parents to let me travel alone. Seeing my dedication to the application process and my willingness to go through any hardship impressed them a lot.” She says she feels lost at times and by traveling alone, she wanted to learn to be more independent, know about herself, build self-confidence and relieve stress. When asked why she was not allowed to travel solo, she says that parents were worried about her safety.

Preety Kulung, 19, agrees. “Had it not been for this competition, I wouldn’t have traveled solo, because the idea of women traveling alone is indeed new for us. News of so many rape cases has created fear among women and parents.”

There have been instances when Nepal­iTravellers has faced difficulty in sending women for solo travel. “In our second year, two winners couldn’t travel because they were not allowed to by their guard­ians,” says Shah.

“It is not a big deal for men to travel alone. It should be the same for women, but our society has not reached there yet. We want more women travelers—traveling solo or in group. It makes travel more inclusive.” Shah believes that if travel is safe for women, it would be safer for everyone else.

Other women we spoke to stated ‘money’, ‘training’, and ‘an opportu­nity to explore oneself’ and ‘to gain self-confidence’ as top reasons for applying. We also spoke with wom­en who have traveled alone with their own money. Faija Parween, who recent­ly went on a solo trip to Europe, says, “I think solo travel is empowering. It is an opportunity to go and see the world with your own eyes and without anyone else to color your views. It makes people, particularly women, more deci­sive and stronger.” She says that compe­titions like Swo-Yatra are just one way for women to travel solo.