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Gopal Magar left his village in Dolakha with his wife and their three children and came to Kathmandu in 1990. He was in his thirties and wanted to give a good life to his children. Magar had a tough childhood. He grew up poor in a large family, where the responsibility of looking after his younger siblings fell on his shoulders. When he moved to Kathmandu with his family, he was determined to make it big. “There comes a time in one’s life when whatever your friends tell you seems right,” he says. “So I followed the advice of my friends and came to Kathmandu with my wife and three children.” Magar landed a job at a hotel after arriving in Kathmandu. He worked there for a year before deciding to become a rickshaw driver. Magar is 67 now and he continues to drive rickshaw to this day. Over the last three decades, he says, his daily routine is more or less the same. He arrives at Thamel at five in the morning with a rickshaw, spends the day driving people around and returns to his rented room at six in the evening. A lot has also changed in Magar’s life in this period. His three children are all grown-up now and leading their own lives. His wife passed away in 2015. She was a life-long epilepsy patient, whom Magar cared for like a doting husband. His life in Kathmandu did not turn out like the one he had imagined when he left his village, but he is proud of what he has achieved. With the earnings he made as a rickshaw driver, he raised his family, sent his children to school, looked after the medical needs of his wife until her last days and even married off his younger siblings. Magar says he decided to become a rickshaw driver because he didn’t have any formal education to have other jobs. “But I have learned a bit of English after riding many foreigners around in my rickshaw,” he beams proudly. Magar earns around Rs 300 daily and Rs 150 of his earnings he has to pay to the rickshaw owner. Not many people ride rickshaws these days, he says, so the business is not good. “My earnings are just enough to pay for my rent and food.” Magar says most of his customers are foreigners, who want to hop on his rickshaw and go on a city sightseeing tour. He says most of his customers are kind and generous while some are mean. “They take a ride and then start bargaining for the fare,” he says. “These days, I have no energy to argue with them.” Magar knows he cannot ride a rickshaw all his life, but he doesn’t know what he will do or where he will go after he leaves the work for good. His health and strength is already failing and he knows he hasn’t got much years ahead or the strength in his body to be pedaling rickshaw all day. He is deeply attached to his work; after all, his rickshaw helped him raise his family, though they are no longer around. Riding the rickshaw gives him purpose—perhaps, an excuse to get out of his rented room, where he lives all by himself. Magar is a proud man. He says he does not want to depend on anybody, ever. Despite everything he has been through in his life, the struggles and the joys, he seems content and cheerful about life. “I will go on with what I am doing right now,” he says. “After that, who knows what happens.”

Wake Up Ali…Wake Up Now’, a novel by Sumit Sharma Sameer, was launched in Kathmandu amid function on Friday.

“I wanted to communicate the stories of our time, the stories that I feel are important and need to be told. The stories of so many Alis have to be spelt out,” author Sameer said while speaking at the program, adding, “Migration has been a permanent feature since the advent of human civilization. It got more accelerated during our age. That acceleration brought varied opportunities to mankind but yet dismantled the very fabrics of our lives.”

“I had always wanted to write something on this very constructive and destructive process connecting South Asia into one thread that could help produce many other stories,” he further said.

Celebrated Nepali author, Buddhisagar said “Ali’s (protagonist) internal journey, self-exploration and realization are three highlights of books which is evenly mixed in a whole story.”

He also said “the book is not merely about migration, but rather has a deep philosophical meaning. The book can be finished in one seating and overall I really liked the book.”

Saguna Shah, author and founder of bOOkahOlics, said the “novel explores the human psychic by exploring the constraints of relationships and desirs’. The content is far and beyond the concerns of migrant workers their status quo and their struggle in a foreign land, but also an internal journey of a protagonist. The book is about an awakening of the protagonist.”

Speaking on the occasion author and columnist Atul K Thakur said that “Nepal’s publishing industry is blossoming and Sumit’s novel reassures it. It is a pure piece of literary fiction with beautiful prose and narrative, should further make Nepal’s spot brighter in the publishing ecosystem.” “The writers and publishers in India and Nepal should enhance cooperation and work in unison, this will be another important pillar of bilateral relations. Sumit will be in great demand among the publishers,” he added.

Speaking on the occasion, Australian ambassador to Nepal Felicity Volk, who is also a celebrated author, said, “This is a migrant story from South Asia. Number of Nepali people migrating to south Asia has doubled in last five years and I’m struck how well the writer has depicted the migrant story. But, this is also a universal story, story of each one of us. Each one of us is traveler in our own struggle.”

Nepali Congress General Secretary and member of Parliament and former Health Minister Gagan Thapa, remembering his long time association with the writer said, “I have known Sumit for last 25 years and knew that he can write non-fiction, but he took me by surprise by writing fiction.”

He further added ‘this is a sociological fiction. This is about social structure, human relationships and individual relationship to the society. This is a story of migrants. Story of diasporas, struggle in the modern day society. The conflict between migrants and natives, the opportunity cost. How one has to disconnect with your loved ones to get connected to the larger world to grab the opportunities. I could see through the characters how the whole process of globalization on one hand bring people together and at the other, same time, makes them dysfunctional. The protagonist compares his life with the life of an ant, he struggles to find his place, his identity in the larger cosmic design. There is an ongoing conflict between the material world and spiritual thought process. It is a powerful book.”

The book was earlier published in Nepali under the title ‘Prawas’ two years ago and has been translated by Sushrut Acharya in English. The English version, ‘Wake Up Ali…Wake Up Now’ has been published in 2022 by Delhi based, Vitasta Publishing.

Garbage bags are stacking up in our homes, neighborhoods and streets, and Kathmandu’s waste collectors have gone AWOL. Rapper-turned-mayor Balen Shah is not getting any kudos from his voters, that’s for sure. After all, solving the city’s perennial solid waste problem was one of his top election agendas. Whatever happened to segregating household waste?

But wait, we can’t wash our hands of this mess just yet. 

Apparently, there is one solid way to manage solid waste. It’s called vermi-composting or worm-composting, a fairly simple and inexpensive way of turning biodegradable waste into organic manure that you can use on your vegetable patch or garden.

Kanchha Maharjan has been doing just this. At his Swayambhu house, he has set up a small vermi-composting space that provides all the nutrients for his rooftop vegetable garden and house plants and flowers.       

Maharjan, who started this pursuit to keep himself busy post-retirement, has become something of an expert in vermi-composting. “You don’t need any expertise for this,” he says. “All it takes is a small space to grow earthworms [vermiculture].” 

He explains that vermicomposting is natural decomposition of organic wastes but in a controlled environment. And all it requires is soil, cow-dung, earthworms, water and organic waste. Most of the work is done by the worms—and mother nature.

Thanks to Maharjan’s pursuit, his family does not have the problem of garbage bags piling up at their home. In fact, he has turned vermicomposting into a business. He sells the organic fertilizer for Rs 50 a kg and the earthworms and their eggs for Rs 3,000 per kg. 

Some way to turn waste into money! Besides vermicomposting, he also practices rainwater harvesting to water the vegetables, plants and flowers. He has set up a large copper tank to collect rainwater that he filters using bleaching powder and other traditional methods. Maharjan and his family have a sustainable household—something we should all aspire to. 

Most of the younger generation got to know her as the bold and feisty judge of the reality show, Himalayan Roadies, but Deeya Maskey is an accomplished dancer and a critically acclaimed actor.

She has time and again proved her acting chops on TV, theater and big screen. Now she is returning to acting with the film ‘Prakash’, a social drama set in western Nepal.  

In an acting career that goes as far back as 15 years, Maskey has acted in only a smattering of movies, which is odd given the talent she possesses. 

But Maskey’s yardstick of success is different; quantity is not what she is after.  She wants to do memorable films and play memorable roles. “I personally do not have a certain preference or role I would like to play,” she says. “But I have to find the right script, or rather the script finds me.” 

Maskey stumbled into acting by accident. Her aim in life was to become a dancer. She entered showbiz as a music video model. Her first modeling job was for the song ‘Bhijyo Sirani’ by Manila Sotang while she was studying dance. “I had gone against my parents’ wish by deciding to become a professional dancer and I needed to support myself financially.”

Maskey had never imagined that modeling for a music video would open the doors for her to other exciting opportunities. Her first acting gig was in the TV series ‘Dalan’ about the life of Dalit community set in the 90s. The show’s director Nabin Subba had asked Maskey to audition for a role after seeing her in the music video.   

“That seems like forever ago,” says Maskey. “I am so bad at remembering dates.”

What Maskey remembers, though, is that playing the role of Kali in the show gave her the acting bug. To prepare for the role, she visited several parts of Nepal and attended several acting workshops. It was both fascinating and educating for her to discover the many aspects of acting, the research and work that went goes into creating a character. 

“All the traveling and research I did for my role and the acting workshops I attended stoked my passion for acting,” says Maskey. 

She made her film debut in the critically acclaimed ‘Kagbeni’ in 2008 and went on to play in other memorable movies like ‘Soongava: Dance of the Orchids’ and ‘Saanghuro’. A pattern emerges if one were to judge Maskey’s filmography. Her movies generally fall in the indie genre and have some kind of social commentary; they are not catered to mainstream crowds.

While Maskey acknowledges that most of her films are unconventional, she says there is nothing intentional about it.

“Maybe because I started out with a TV show with a social message, most of the movies I am offered are in the similar vein,” she says. “As for not doing many mainstream films, I don’t consider myself the right fit.”

Maskey is more of a character actor who revels in playing unconventional roles and we all are better off for that. Her kind is rare in Nepali film industry.