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A decade ago, the idea of a sarangi player as an inte­gral part of a contempo­rary pop, blues or jazz band would perhaps have sound­ed absurd. But come today, the ethnic Nepali sarangi has become a leading instrument in all genres of modern Nepali music. Sarangi players are defying the age-old position of the wooden sarangi as a vocal accompaniment to using it as a distinct instrument that blends seamlessly into a West­ern ensemble—and Project Sarangi is one reason behind this positive change. Initiated in December 2012, Project Sarangi has been work­ing to revive and preserve the sarangi and other ethnic Nepali instruments. “The idea was to create a bridge between a traditional instrument and modern Nepali music,” says Kiran Nepali, the Founder/ Director of Project Sarangi and a professional musician touring with artists like Bipul Chhetri, Kutumba and Suman & the Blue Frets. “We noticed that sarangi, as an instrument, was limited to folk groups and with that it risked extinction as the new generation of musi­cians were not interested in learning it.” So he took the initiative to bring together the old and young generations of Nepali musicians and contin­ue the legacy of ethnic Nepali instruments.

Project Sarangi began with the standardization of the instrument. The traditional Nepali sarangi is similar to stringed instruments from the Middle East and South East Asia. But it is also unique. It is carved out of a single piece of wood and played with a bow. The strings on both the instrument and bows were initially made of animal hair. “We started by standardizing the instrument,” Nepali says. “Previously, sarangis did not have a set size. It all depended on available wood and tools, which resulted in inconsisten­cy in how they sounded. We started making standard sizes of these instruments to give them professional quality.”

On the verge

Besides standardizing size, Project Sarangi also ‘upgrad­ed’ the instrument. Animal hair was replaced by nylon strings and different gaug­es (string thickness) were explored. Also, the sarangi by its nature is an acoustic instru­ment. With time, musicians started miking it for recording and live stage performances. “Even with microphones, we noticed that our volume lev­els were low. We then start­ed experimenting with pick­ups, which helped with the sound,” says Nepali who also uses electronic gadgets and signal processors on sarangi to create distinct notes.

Apart from developing the instrument, Project Sarangi is also working to provide formal education to school children and youngsters interested in sarangi, as well as profession­al training to new musicians. Traditionally, the sarangi is associated with the “Gand­harba” families of Nepal, who have been using it for centu­ries to pass down folklores, stories and news. Gandharbas have been an integral part of Nepal’s oral tradition of history. With the rapid mod­ernization of Nepali society, this family tradition was on the verge of extinction. This made Nepali, who belongs to one of the most famous Gand­harba families, think of ways to pique the interest of young Nepalis in the instrument.

Holding its own

Project Sarangi, since its inception, has been success­ful in garnering support and interest in the sarangi and oth­er ethnic Nepali instruments. “We have trained around 40 professional sarangi players, all of whom are now involved with the Nepali music indus­try,” says Nepali. Some stu­dents under Project Sarangi are already making waves in contemporary pop music scene as well as in the Nepali film industry. In recordings as well as live music, the saran­gi can now can be seen and heard holding its own besides drums, bass and guitars.

Yukta Poudel, 18, is a stu­dent enrolled under Project Sarangi. “I was learn­ing gui­tar initially but then I thought I should learn an instrument that is my own and that is how I picked up the sarangi,” says Poudel, a college student who is now taking a basic course at Proj­ect Sarangi. Even with her limited exposure to sarangi so far, she has managed to perform in a few shows. This has boosted her confidence and increased her commitment to the instru­ment. “We can make sarangi a ‘cool’ instrument for young­sters and revive a dying art,” she echoes her teacher.

The future holds immense potential for the sarangi, if the success thus far of Project Sarangi is anything to go by. “We want to educate, moti­vate and inspire young players to take up this instrument,” says Nepali, “This can be accomplished if we introduce a ‘cool factor’ to sarangi.”

All notes and scales

Sarangi on its own has never appealed to the youth. Nepali attributes this to the old presentation style of tra­ditional artists. The sarangi was always played sitting down but now Nepali is using specially designed stands to play them on stage. “It is all about presentation,” he says. “We’re trying to give a makeover to the instrument so that the young generation embraces and accepts it and our legacy continuous.” What helps is that almost all the notes and scales used in West­ern music can be played in sarangi, which makes it easy to blend with rock, pop, blues or jazz.

Towards this goal Project Sarangi has been working incessantly both as a platform and a moderator. Besides educating young students, Project Sarangi conducted a free three-month course for female students last Septem­ber. Around 25 students from different walks of life joined to learn about the instrument. For more professional musi­cians, it hosts regular meets and workshops where players of all levels and ages come together to share ideas and tricks of the trade.

The project also organizes regular events as platforms for students to showcase their skills. “Sarangi Month” and “Jamarko” are among the popular events where ethnic Nepali instruments enthrall audiences. “We want to introduce a Nepali instru­ment to every household,” says Nepali. “The best way of doing that is teach­ing children and giving traditional instruments a modern makeover. We are doing both at the moment.”

No one, it seemed, had any idea about what to do with the rug­ged piece of land on a hilltop. “There is no road, no electricity, and no potable water,” locals used to complain.Pushpa Raj Adhikari decided to brush aside these concerns when he returned to Nepal after spending 20 years in Belgium, for he believed the place had all the potential in the world. “It’s been ages since an undersea railway system was started between France and the UK. At the end of the second decade of the 21st century, why couldn’t we have five or six kilometers of motor road in Pokhara?” he asks.

It was with this can-do spirit that Adhikari started building a resort in the rugged hilly terrains of Rupa rural municipality here in Pokhara. Construction was completed in two years, and it has now been three years since the resort has been in operation. “If you had planted millet in this area, you would have har­vested Rs 20,000 worth of it in a year. Today, a foreign tourist pays that sum for a single night’s stay at this resort,” says Adhikari with visible pride.

Aiming high…

Rupakot used to be a village devel­opment committee of Lekhnath municipality before its incorpora­tion into Pokhara metropolitan city. It is at the highest point of Rupakot, now Rupa rural municipality, that Adhikari has built his resort. But Adhikari has done so much more than build a profit-making resort.

He also paid Rs 2.6 million to bring water to the nearby Bhirkot village, says Narayan Gurung, the chairman of ward 6 of the rural municipality.

In Rupa rural municipality, Adhikari had started giving locals welcome surprises even before the construction of his resort. In what was thought of as parched land, he was able to draw water from the ground. “The water boring sys­tems he built directly benefitted 100 households in the area,” says Gurung. Adhikari installed one bor­ing system for his resort and one for the village at large, but the locals can draw water from both.

It was also at Adhikari’s initiative that the local community school built a library with Rs 5 million col­lected from foreign donors. The school today runs many scholarship schemes, again courtesy Adhikari, which support poor and hardwork­ing students.

The resort employs around 100 locals. Juna KC is one of them. Given her household responsibilities, she says it would have been impossible for her to go down to Pokhara in search of a job. Now she commutes to work from her home. “Today, I earn as much as a Nepali migrant worker of my age would earn in, say, Malaysia,” she says. Adhikari hopes to create 1,000 local jobs in the near future.

With the help of loans from the Global IME Bank, Adhikari has already invested Rs 600 million in Rupakot Resort. “We are now in the process of building presidential suites that will cater to international VIPs and heads of state,” he says. With these suits, total investment will come to a billion rupees.

…and higher

The resort currently has 42 rooms, which is now being expanded into 92 rooms; and most of the new rooms will be for foreign VIPs. “After we finish our presidential suites, we will sell the most expensive hotel rooms in Nepal,” Adhikari says. His plan is to make Rupakot “unquestionably the best resort in the country.”

Adhikari takes pride in being able to make Rupakot Resort a favorite among tourists, even though it is located far from the traditional tour­ist hub of Lakeside.

But Adhikari’s dream is not lim­ited to Rupakot. He plans on invest­ing another billion rupees to start a ‘world village’, which, he says, will be a ‘living museum’ reflective of the 18th century Nepal. “In this village, people will live and work as Nepalis did back in the 18th cen­tury”. The village design is complete and Adhikari expects work on it to start from the next Nepali New Year.

Sky is the limit for this serial entre­preneur. In due course, he hopes to create 50,000 local jobs by building big apartments by Rupa Lake and selling them ‘for billions of rupees’ to foreigners. Adhikari also dreams of one day expanding the lake and running cruise services on it.

Bhedetar bazaar, a hill-station sandwiched between Dhankuta and Dharan, has of late become a year-round tourist destination. The guests who reach Bhede­tar after navigating the serpen­tine mountain roads are wel­comed by its crisp air that is cool through the year. Perched 1,425 meters above sea level, Bhedetar is the perfect viewing point for the green eastern hills, snow-covered Makalu and Kum­bhakarna and the Saptakoshi River flowing in the gorge below.

Peekaboo

The constant fight for suprem­acy between the sun and clouds is one of the features of the place. “During the summer months, tourists come to escape the brutal Tarai heat and perhaps sip on cold beer, while during the winters they like basking in the sun all day,” says Jitendra Rumdali Rai, secretary of the Hotel Association of Bhedetar. In the peak summer season, up to 5,000 tourists visit Bhedetar daily, and 75 percent of tourists are Indians. “Earlier, most tour­ists would come in the morning and leave in the evening,” says Rai. “But now many of them stay for three or four days”.

In addition to being a popular picnic spot, Bhedetar is also an entry-way into eastern moun­tains. In this light, the place can be seen as the first pit-stop for travelers to these mountains. The motor road heading out of Bhedetar winds its way up to Panchthar and Ilam districts before reaching the mountains of Bhojpur, Sankhuwasabha and Terhathum districts.

Bhedetar first came into prominence when the heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, visited the place in the late 1980s. A view-tower was later built in his name, and it soon became the most favored spot from which to view the east­ern Himalayas. The tower was badly damaged in the 2015 earth­quakes; it is being rebuilt.

Investing big

Hoteliers have already invested over Rs 3 billion in Bhedetar, according to Rai. There are now around 150 big and small hotels there, of which 80 are consid­ered of high standards.

Moreover, in the nearby Namje and Thumki, there are around two dozen home-stay facilities, bringing the total hotel capacity to around 1,200 guests a day. As local accommodations improve, Bhedetar is also becoming a venue of choice for regional trainings and seminars.

To further boost tourism the Hotel Association of Nepal has for the past six years been organizing a ‘local cuisines festival’ on the day of Grego­rian New Year. The guests at Bhedetar are treated to local del­icacies like gundruk (fermented vegetables), dhido (a wheat dish) and stinging nettle.

Places to go

There are over a dozen places visitors to Bhedetar can go to. Right next to Bhedetar bazaar is Thumki, a popular viewing spot for the scenery all around. Like­wise, the temple of Shankhas­wor Mahadev is another place that is always filled with tourists. Another favorite among religious tourists is Pathibhara temple two kilometer away, which must be visited on foot.

Then there is the historic San­guri stone fort, the seat of power for the 10 kingdoms assembled under the erstwhile Limbuwan. The fort is at a walking distance of around 25 minutes from Bhedetar bazaar. Similarly, the nearby Magar villages of Namje and Thumki are famous for their home-stays, for those who prefer not to stay in expensive hotels. Namje is also famous for its sacred burial grounds of the Magars who still practice a form of animism. CNN found the small Namje village so piquant that in 2011 it listed the village among its global “12 best places you have never heard of”.

A trip of Bhedetar is consid­ered incomplete without visiting the Namaste waterfall, which is 20-minute drive from Bhedetar bazaar. This middle-of-the-jun­gle waterfall has of late been welcoming above 1,000 tourists a day, many of them there for canoeing.

All these attractions make Bhe­detar one of the tourist hubs of Province 1.

 A quick-fire 42 runs in 31 balls by bowler Karan KC propelled Nepal into the qualifiers of the 2019 Cricket World Cup, as they beat Canada by one wicket on Wednes­day, February 15. This represents the greatest victory for Nepal in the 50-over international cricket. Nepal will now be able to take part in the World Cup Qualifiers to be held in Zimbabwe in March later this year. Top two teams in the qualifiers will make it to the 2019 World Cup in England and Wales. In the final (must-win) match of the ICC World Cricket League Divi­sion-2 held at the Wanderers Crick­et Ground in Windhoek, Namibia, Nepal sneaked through on the last ball, thanks to the heroics of KC, whose inning was studded with three fours and four sixes.

Earlier, deciding to bowl first, Nepal had restricted Canada to an average total of 194 runs, for eight wickets, in the stipulated 50 overs. Basant Regmi was the pick of the bowlers for Nepal, taking three wickets and giving away only 34 runs in 10 overs. Sandeep Lamichhane took two wickets while Karan KC and Sharad Veshwakar took one wicket each.

In reply, Nepal made a poor start losing opener Gyanendra Malla for just 9 runs and captain Paras Khad­ka for a first-ball duck. Sharad Vesh­wakar too was out early, scoring only 1 run in 5 balls.

Building on the 45 runs scored by wicket-keeper batsman Dilip Nath and 18 runs by Dipendra Singh Airee, Aarif Sheikh and Rohit Kumar took Nepal close to the victory target. However, Nepal kept losing wickets and were left with the last pair in the 42nd over with only 144 runs on the board.

However, Karan had other ideas and took away the match with a sen­sational innings, while Sandeep gave him company. Karan scored a single of the last ball to script a famous win for the country.

With the win, Nepal finished top of the points on the (six-team table) with 8 points from five matches.

(With inputs from RSS)