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Bangladesh is a Muslim-majority country of 163 million people with only small pockets of Hin­du communities, comprising around 14 percent of the population. Hin­du-Muslim relations are generally good in Bangladesh and during my five years there, I felt right at home, even during Dashain. Planting jamara in my Asian Uni­versity for Women (AUW) hostel, getting tika from my professors and seniors instead of my grandmother, playing cards with my friends instead of my cousins, and eating Nepali food cooked with friends instead of with my family—there were some variations, but we tried to celebrate the festival pretty much as we would back in Nepal.

We did not get long holidays for Dashain but on the night of Dashami Nepali students gathered and played the Mangal Dhun, sang Nepali songs, and danced and played cards. Some even cried as they missed Nepal. There were students who felt lonely during Dashain, especially those celebrating it for the first time away from their families.

Hundreds of Nepali students will celebrate their Dashain in Bangla­desh this year as well. Currently, around 400 Nepali students are studying medicine in Bangladesh. The number of Nepali students in other technical subjects has been increasing as well. Besides them, there are around 10,000 permanent­ly settled Nepalis in the country.

“This is going to be my first Dashain away from family”, says Archana Suwal, 20, a current stu­dent in AUW Chittagong. “But I am not sad as I have found many senior Nepali sisters to celebrate Dashain with.” Sanjay Karki, 25, who studied MBBS in Bangladesh and is now working in Maldives, says that he gets excited when he remembers Dashain celebrations in Bangladesh.

“During Dashain, we used to gaze out at the flock of Hindus going for Durga Puja at a nearby temple from our rented apartment in Zam Zam building [in Chittagong]. We Nepalis too formed a group to go visit local temples,” Karki says. Reminisc­ing the moments spent celebrat­ing Dashain with his Bangladeshi friends, he says, “Despite being a Muslim country, Bangladesh knows how to respect and value other reli­gions. I am thankful to my Bengali friends for being there for us.”

There are also working profes­sionals who feel right at home in Bangladesh. One of them is Biswas Kafle, 32, a tour operator who has been staying in Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka for the past one decade. “I visit Shakti Peeths and go to Durga Pujas organized by Hindus in Ban­gladesh. In my view, the Hindus here feel a little dominated by Muslims so when we foreigners visit the temples and meet the local Hindus, they feel good and proud to be a part of the bigger Hindu community.”

When asked if he misses Dashain celebrations in Nepal, he answers “Not really!” as he frequently visits Nepal. “For last Dashain celebra­tions, I along with some other Nepali students in Dhaka had reserved a whole ship for a DJ party.”

But alcohol was not a part of the party. The absurdly high tax, as high as 605 per cent, and Islam’s ban on alcohol makes it hard to get in Ban­gladesh, even for foreigners. Howev­er, most Nepalis in Bangladesh that APEX talked to seemed to have no problem celebrating without it.

You cannot experience in Ban­gladesh the kind of Dashain vibe that sweeps Nepal this time of the year. There are no swings or kites in the sky. But Nepalis, who have been staying in Bangladesh for some time, have found a way to connect with their Nepali roots during this festival: dancing to the rhythm of Sugam Pokharel’s “Dashain Tihar” and cooking masu bhat and tarkari.

The third edition of the Kathmandu Blues and Roots music festival is all set to take place this Saturday, Sept 29, at the Tangalwood premises. This time, the orga­nizers promise a bigger and better edition of Kathmandu’s homegrown homage to the music from the Americas. With an international act The Well, all the way from the US, the Kathmandu Blues and Roots this year boasts of a versatile lineup of local musicians tak­ing the stage to play the blues. Nepal’s folk-blues legends Mukti and Revival will be headlining the event with Newaz, TMR Trio, Illusion, Kathmandu Cats and Millions Addicts—the winners of the Blues and Roots online contest—slated to perform at the all-day affair.

The event, organized by Tarang Entertainment, will begin at 12:30 pm with the tra­ditional Gulan Baja from Ason opening the event. The Distin­guished Gentleman’s Ride hap­pening on the same day is also sharing the Tangalwood venue and the riders of the DGR are expected to merge into the audi­ence of Blues and Roots, making it even grander.

Tickets (Rs 300 each) to the event can be purchased at the door  

 If you are looking for a quiet week­end getaway then Om Adhyay Retreat Resort in Tistung-Pa­lung is the place to be! Located 65 km north of Kathmandu, it is an adventurous four-hour drive. Try to avoid the bumpy Kulekhani road though. Instead take the one that goes from Naubisey to Daman (on the old road to Hetauda). On the way to Daman, there are plenty of pointers to the hotel. Meanwhile, en route, you can enjoy some ultra-clean air, which is increasingly a luxury for people in Kathmandu. When you reach the hotel, which was established in 2015, you will find peace and serenity. The place is nice and quiet, too, with farms on three sides and a hill on one, and with the calming sound of waterfall in the backdrop to boot.

The name Om Adhyay sug­gests a meditative retreat, and the place seems to reflect this. Even if a noisy group is in the vicinity, you will easily find a corner inside the spacious property where you can be by yourself.

There are 42 tents with very good mattresses in case you want to experience living in one, while you have all modern amenities at your doorstep. You can also hire a tent to set it up in the hills nearby. What’s more, these tents are Rs 300 cheaper than normal room fares in the resort!

You can enjoy in-house activities such as snooker, table tennis, vol­leyball, badminton and also relive your childhood by playing slides and swings. There is a plunge pool too, where water flows in from a ‘dhunge dhara’ as you relax. From this place, you can go explore other destina­tions as well; Markhu, Kulekhani, Chitlang, Unamatteshwor Mahadev, Bajra Barahi, Kulekhani and Kunch­hal village are within short distance. Some of them can also be reached on foot, if you prefer to walk it.

The meals at the resort are a tasty affair—the a la carte snacks and the main course “Nepali dal bhat” buffet are both so good you might want to go back just for them. The in-house restaurant also serves var­ious liquors as well as shisha. The staff is friendly and helpful.

Fridays and Saturdays are usually packed so for those days booking should be done three weeks prior, according to Deepak Bidari, the director of the resort. Otherwise, you can book a week ahead or just drop in. One-day stay package here costs around Rs 3,000, which is a good deal considering many facili­ties such as free Wi-Fi.

As this place is cold throughout the year, the best time to visit would be during summer or late summer. Director Bidari says large groups from companies and schools often come visit.

Om Adhyay is recommended for those who want to travel a little dis­tance from Kathmandu for a retreat experience, writers who want some alone time for creative energy to flow and people who want to med­itate. A weekend there promises to be a great retreat for your mind, body and soul. 

 As in the Olympics where ath­letes compete to prove their physical prowess, teenagers too compete to prove their mental acuity on the global Olympic stage. There are various types of Interna­tional Olympiads they take part in, for instance those related to physics, biology and literature. But none rivals the prestige of the oldest of them all: The International Mathe­matics Olympiad (IMO). Considered by many to be the hardest Olympiad, IMO has con­tinued to fascinate students from around the world since its inception in 1959.

The IMO lasts for two days and students are given three problems to solve each day. The problems relate to different aspects of mathematics like number theory, geometry, com­binatorics and algebra.

Many countries have been par­ticipating in the IMO for decades, but Nepal started doing so only in 2017 at the 58th International Math­ematics Olympiad in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with the team of Awanish Khanal, Bibek Panthi, Bivek Pan­thi, Prabin Mahato, Ajay Pokharel and Prasanna Shrestha. They were led by team leader Deepak Bastola, deputy leader Pitambar Acharya and Prof. Dr. Bhadra Man Shrestha. Nepal also took part in the 2018 IMO held in Cluz, Romania.

Every country has an organization to oversee selection for the Olym­piad and to provide resources for prospective participants. In Nepal, Mathematics Olympiad of Nepal (MOON), a non-profit, has taken up this mantle. MOON, registered as the body overseeing IMO-related activities in Nepal by the IMO board in 2015, has since extended the selection process to all 77 districts in the country.

The winners at the district lev­el selection rounds compete at province level rounds. After the final national round among Top 50 contestants, six are picked for the Olympiad.

The questions at the province lev­el and national level rounds are comparable to those asked at the IMO, making these rounds chal­lenging even for the most intelligent minds. In addition to managing the selection process, MOON is also trying to conduct training programs and to provide resources for self-study through cooperation with other countries’ teams.

Despite the rigorous selection that skims the most intelligent youngsters of our country, Nepal’s performance at the IMO has been mediocre. Says Bibek Panthi, a two-time IMO con­testant, “Our course content is poor compared to that of other countries. While I was in Romania I saw a kid in the eighth grade doing homework on projections, a concept that we are taught only at +2 level.”

Deepak Bastola, the president of MOON, points out other reasons for poor results. “The problem is not lack of resources or finances, for they can be managed easily,” he says. “The real problem is peo­ple’s attitude to competitions such as IMO and, most importantly, towards mathematics.” Bastola says that while they were searching for prospective Olympiad candidates in schools around the country, some schools refused to cooperate. “They were concerned that good students would ruin their grades if they were sidetracked by such competitions.”

Parents are also uninterested for the same reason. “Our society is against mathematics,” Bastola adds. “Mathematics is constantly demon­ized in front of children before they even get a chance to explore it.”

The second reason for lack of interest is that “the society is not aware of the applications of math­ematics and its nature that chang­es according to the situation.” To explain his latter claim, he offers a riddle: “A mom and a son go to a movie theater. A dad and a son go to the same theater. How many people in total went to the theater?” Think about it.

Training for IMO 2019 will begin this month, and the selection pro­cess will start within a few months. According to ex-contestants, anyone interested should just go for it. “I highly recommend students at the secondary level and those under 19 years of age to take part. They will not only get an opportunity to repre­sent Nepal at the world stage. They will also in the process develop a wide range of inter-personal skills,” says Awanish Khanal, another contestant representing Nepal in 2017 Rio IMO.

Panthi agrees, as getting to meet people from different cultural back­grounds and assimilating in such a diverse community are invaluable opportunities that contribute to one’s social development. If you need an additional incentive, a big proportion of Fields medalists (the ‘Nobel in mathematics’) and Nobel laureates have won some medals at the IMO.