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Mithu Karki has not had a chance to attend a beauty pageant so far. At least not the kind involving pretty women. But on May 12 she was involved in another kind of beauty contest: the one for buffalos. When Kar­ki reached Hawaai Chowk in the south-eastern Nepali town of Itahari early on the morning of May 12, she was accompanied by Hira, the buffalo her family has had for six years. Several other buffalos had been brought there. There were 38 of them to be precise, all cleaned up and adorned. The occasion was a beauty pageant of sorts. For buffa­los. There were some onlookers too.

The judges of the ‘Buffalo Beauty Contest’ were veterinarians and oth­er technicians from the District Live­stock Service Office. The assessment criteria were the buffalos’ height, gait, udders, the amount of milk they produce, etc. Hira won the first prize and bagged Rs 11,000. Her nearest competitor was a buffalo belonging to Nara Bahadur Karki.

A resident of Rajdevi Tol, Mithu and her family have been rearing buffaloes for the past 10 years. For the most part, Mithu looks after Hira; she gives 12 liters of milk daily. “We manage our household expens­es from the money the milk fetch­es,” said Mithu’s husband Bharat. “We also invest part of the earning in taking care of Hira.”

“We organized the contest to encourage buffalo farmers,” said Tanka Dahal, chairperson of the organizing institute, Batawaran Ra Paryawaran Samrackchan Kend­ra Nepal, an NGO. “It’s relatively easier to rear cows than buffalos, so the number of cow farmers has increased in recent times. But cows yield less milk than buffalos. So we want to incentivize farmers to rear buffalos,” said Dahal.

By  HIMAL DAHAL | Itahari

Everest is not only the tallest mountain in the world but also has great sanctity. But this sanctity is being defiled. Every year, during the expedition season, around 700 climbers and guides spend nearly two months atop Ever­est. When they climb down, they leave behind large amounts of feces, urine and other pollutants. Such pollutants are piling up in areas above 5,000 meters. At the base camps, wastes are collected in drums, and disposed of when the drums are full. But, from 5,300 meters on, there are no toilets and human waste is directly deposited in the snow. New climbers report that the route to the top of Everest is not just crowded but terri­bly polluted too. The area is covered with empty oxygen cylinders, food wrappers, broken tents, batteries, mountain gears and other accesso­ries including clothes and backpacks of climbers and guides.

Worse still, there are around 200 dead bodies in Everest, including that of George Mallory after his disappearance in 1924. Pollution in Everest is a threat to human civilization too, as the whole Himalayan range including Everest is a source of fresh water for South Asia and beyond.

However, there are still those who argue that survival of the climbers and supporting staff in a ‘death zone’, coupled with supporting the local economy, should be the first priority, while bringing back the abandoned moun­taineering gears should be a distant second priority.

There have been some efforts to clean up Everest. But they are inadequate to deal with the scale of the pollution on such a harsh terrain. Dawa Steven Sherpa and his clean-up team, the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee and Tara Air have been carrying out Everest clean-up expeditions on their own. Likewise, the govern­ment has obliged the climbers to bring back the garbage in order to get their deposits back. But, again, such efforts, even though made in good faith, are not enough.

In the absence of effective monitoring, government actions are no more than rituals as the focus is still on generating more revenue, as if Everest is a cow that can be milked endlessly.

The first thing we should do is reduce excessive commercialization of Everest and preserve its sanc­tity. The flow of climbers cannot continue indefinitely unless we clean up our mountains. Everest should be a perennial source of income for Nepali tourism, not a short-lived tourism product. This is why our primary focus should be on promoting expeditions that produce less pollutants.

For this, wind power can be harnessed in Everest so that the climbers need not carry cooking gas. Likewise, the climbers can be encouraged to carry solar panels with them, for cooking and other purposes.

But the focus right now should be on removing garbage from Everest through innovative ideas. Recent­ly, the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (better known by its French acronym UIAA) has given some financial support to a project designed to produce gas from human waste on Everest. The next step could be fixing sim­ple ropes at certain locations with which to send down garbage to the base camps. Such innovative, and mass-scale, measures are desper­ately needed.

By Dr Ganesh Gurung

The author is a former member of the National Planning Commission and currently an advisor to Nepal mountaineering Association (NMA)

Najir Hussain, who has acted in various Nepali movies like Bir Bikram, Hostel Returns, Punte Parade, etc, is back in theater with his debut directorial venture ‘The Ugly Duckling’. Khan previously performed as a theater actor and has featured in over 20 plays.‘The Ugly Duckling’ is a fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen, who is best known for writing children’s sto­ries. Andersen’s stories like the ‘The Princess and the Pea’ and ‘The Ugly Duckling’ are classics of the genre.

The Ugly Duckling is about a jour­ney of a bird that differs in appear­ance from others in its flock, which makes it an outcast. Confused about its identity, the ugly duckling goes through a difficult phase. But with hope and self-belief, it eventually overcomes the hardship and discov­ers its inner beauty. The play depicts the ways in which people tend to discriminate against those who are different to them. It’s a timeless theme, so although the original sto­ry was written in 1843, the contem­porary audience can easily relate to the plot.

The cast includes Hussain, Bikram Shrestha, Milan Karki, Vijaya Karki, Binita Gurung and Kiran Shrestha. The play is being staged at Mandala Theater in Anamnagar and will run till June 3. The showtime is 5:30 pm every day of the week (except Mondays). There is an extra show on Saturdays at 1 pm. APEX BUREAU

Written in 1900 and first debuting in 1901 at the Moscow Art Theatre, Three Sisters has since been performed in various coun­tries with local adaptations. Penned by the renowned Rus­sian author and playwright Anton Chekhov, Three Sis­ters is among his most famous plays along with the likes of The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull and Uncle Vanya. ‘Tin Bahini’, the Nepali adaptation of the play, is scripted by Meghraj Adhikari and directed by Ghanshyam Shrestha.

Maya, Aabha and Rina are three sisters who leave the capital when their father, a military personnel, gets trans­ferred. The three sisters lead quiet, seemingly purpose­less lives. But their lives are thrown into disarray when their only brother Dipak Jung marries Nikita, a rural girl. Nitika, whose lifestyle and worldview are completely different from those of the sisters, disrupts the family dynamics with her bossy and manipulative character.

Although there are no dras­tic events in this play, the char­acters do have to endure many of the life’s more familiar vicis­situdes, making the play both poignant and relatable.

The cast includes Shanti Giri, Shushma Koirala, Sunisa Bajgai, Shyam Khadka, Shree Om Rodan, Ghimire Yuvaraj, Jiban Baral, Bikash Joshi, Arjun Neupane, Anna Deuja, Suresh GC, Asmita Khanal, Amul Shrestha and Shulabh Pandey.

The play is being staged at Shilpi Theater in Battisputali till May 26. The showtime is 5:30 pm every day of the week except on Tuesdays. There is an extra show on Saturdays at 1 pm. APEX BUREAU