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A book could be boring if it is not of your field of interest. But not all books. Some can be damn interesting regardless of what they are about. Dambar Krishna Shrestha’s ‘Nepali Pravasan: Niyati ra Rahar’ is one such book. It tells stories of Nepalis who have gone to foreign countries—from Asia to Europe to Australia to America. These are stories of life, aspiration, success, failure, pain, death, labor, entrepreneurship, and hope.The stories take you on a world tour and connect you to Nepalis everywhere. You’ll meet Tulasi Kumar Gurung of Pokhara in Hong Kong who ensures that his boss Li Ka-shing, one of the richest men in the world, is safe and sound. You’ll meet Sabin Sapkota of Dharan in Germany, coaching golfers. There’s Gurkha soldier Indra Bahadur Rai from Dharan, showing his five med­als of bravery from World War II. And Hakim Shrestha from Jhapa who runs a chain of grocery stores in Malaysia. The construction com­pany initiated by Dipak Khadka in Hong Kong employs 360 people from Australia, China, and the Phil­ippines. Lakesh Gurung from Gong­abu (Kathmandu) is an army officer in French Foreign Legion.

Gulf countries may be risky for Nepali women but they are doing pretty well in Hong Kong, Japan, the US, and the UK. Pavin Rai from Dha­ran is an officer with British Armed Forces. People often assume she is a Gurkha soldier or a wife of one. It’s hard for them to believe she has fought hard battles in the bunkers of Kenya, Cyprus, and twice in Afghan­istan. Her most difficult moment was when three of her colleagues were killed in Afghanistan in 2008.

Sushila Rai found it difficult to sustain the family even after work­ing from 4am till 9pm at her shop in Dharan. In Hong Kong, earning a living has never been an issue.

On board Qatar Airways, you may run into the music video model Pragya Panta, who is now an air­hostess with the airlines. There you may also meet ‘hot’ cybernepal.com model Sicilia. Eating Nepali food at Monika Rai’s restaurants in Japan and shopping at her department stores can also be an experience.

In America, you’ll meet many of Nepal’s missing celebrities. If you’re one of the music-loving teens of the 1990’s, you may be interested in knowing that Harish Mathema is ‘found in the US doing something or the other.’ It makes me nostalgic as I still have his songs ‘Aankhako Nani Hau Timi’ and ‘Swapnil Rangma’ in my collection.

Actress Arunima Lamsal smiles in front of the tables in a Maryland restaurant where she works. Singer Yam Baral poses for a photo on a street. Actresses Saranga Shrestha and Puja Chanda stand for a group picture with their families. Premraja Mahat, Yam Baral, Sapanashree, Jagadish Samal, Roshan Gurung, Dipesh Kishor Bhattarai sing Nepali songs somewhere. Yam Baral quips: “There are so many Nepali artistes in the US that one may have to take them from here for a show in Nepal.”

The stories are written in direct and unpretentious tone of newspa­per journalism. The skills of Shrestha as a writer-reporter and of Rajendra Dahal, Kundan Aryal, Shiva Gaunle, and Kiran Nepal as editors at Himal Khabarpatrika com­bine to give reading pleasure.

Had it been an academic thesis or an NGO report on migration, it would be half as fun to read. But written by a journalist who is himself a migrant in Hong Kong, it sounds real and lively.

The book is a collection of stories Shrestha wrote between 2000 and 2015 for Himal Khabarpatrika. The 41 stories are thematically divided into nine sections. There are success stories of Nepalis but also stories of awful deaths abroad. It’s appalling to learn that three dead bodies fly into the country daily. There are people who have committed suicide after failing to repay debts even after working under the hot Qatar sun.

There is the gloomy story of Sudarshan Khadka of Lele, Lalitpur, whose brother Ramesh Khadka was one of the 12 Nepalis killed by terror­ists in Iraq in 2004. The government gave the family a million rupees in compensation. The family spent Rs 100,000 to build a bust of the dead son at the courtyard of their house, and gave Sudarshan Rs 250,000 to go abroad for work. Of all the coun­tries, Sudarshan chose Iraq. The rea­son was better pay. He confides to the author: “It’s no use just remem­bering him [Ramesh]. Though the fear of death looms every moment, there is also the hope of earning well.” But he couldn’t enter Iraq. His agent took him to Jordan via India, Dubai, and Kuwait. After spending three months on the tour and losing the money, he returned.

Why would Nepalis go abroad after all? The book offers some ideas. In his preface to the book, Rajendra Dahal writes: “On read­ing the success stories of Nepalis abroad, a question comes to the mind: Nepalis don’t have work at home, but they have no dearth of it abroad. Why is that?”

Published by Himal Kitab for the Center for the Study of Labor and Mobility, Social Science Baha, the 296-page book is priced at Rs 390

A native of Dolakha who has been living in Kathmandu for a long time, Shrestha was always confused about his identity. After the 2015 earthquake, he went back to his hometown to discover himself. He recalled carrying doko back in his village and was always mesmerized by its weav­ing patterns. He says, “Our identity is like doko’s, slowly disappearing in the mist of modernism. I started this project to revive our old traditions and help people recover from the post-quake trauma.”

In our day to day life, seldom do we stop and look around us to see what’s new. The public space no longer seems so public. Shrestha wants people to start noticing things around them again, and using art to bring these public spaces back to life. “People have the miscon­ception that art is limited to drawings, paintings, and sculptures. But this is a false impression,” he says. “Art can be created from anything and everything. From the clothes we wear to the way food is served.”

Shrestha plans is to initiate street art projects all over Nepal, using the medium to reach out to the communities and give them important socio-political messages. “Art has taught me to live a gratifying life, face challenges, and to endlessly experi­ment,” he says.

Though the artist runs the project sin­gle-handedly, he believes he could pro­duce ‘national assets’ even with a little government help.

Many people made fun of Prakash Raj Pandey when he told them he wanted to be a mountaineer. They did not trust him due to his relatively short stature and a body structure that report­edly didn’t suit climbing. On 26 June 2016, he proved them all wrong, by accent­ing his first peak—Baden Pow­ell Scout Peak—and created history by being the second climber in Nepal Scout to scale Langtang.

Mountains fascinated Pan­dey since his childhood. Growing up in the lap of the Himalayas, it was always his dream to overcome the mighty mountains—all across the world. “The story of Ten­zing Norgey Sherpa and Sir Edmund Hilary always moti­vated me and gave me cour­age to climb,” he says. In 2017, he climbed Mt. Island Peak, which paved the way for the ascent of Mt. Everest. Before trying Everest, Pandey had in 2018 scaled Ama Dablam.

Arguably the most import­ant achievement in any mountaineer’s life is scaling the world’s highest peak, Everest. In this venture, as he was the team leader of 11 climbers, he was entrusted with great responsibility. On reaching base camp, obsta­cles came to him thick and fast. An avalanche hit the team. Were it not for his guide Tshering Bhote Lama, he would have died.

“Mountains are gods and the Sherpas are the worship­pers. These guides are the reason climbers like me safely reach home,” Pandey says. The most important part of mountaineering is to be dis­ciplined and to strictly fol­low the guide, he adds. “I guess I am alive because my guides helped me through all the difficulties.”

Pandey is also an active member of Nepal Scout and is involved in social work. Recently, with the support of V.S. Niketan School and Dynamic Scout Crew coor­dinated by Nepal Scouts, he organized the Free Health Campaign at Manang. He also donated to Chepang Basti and bore expenses for Shanti Che­pang’s Grade X education. “I have been a member of Nepal Scout for 13 years. This may be why I am motivated to helping others in need,” he says.

Pandey was committed to helping people of Chepang community as they lacked even basic facilities. “Our donation program fell under the Scout SDGs,” Pandey says, while promising he would continue to work in moun­taineering and social work simultaneously.

While submitting Everest, he came across dead bodies as well as plastic waste. Everest has comparatively more waste than Manaslu or Ama Dablam. He said the volume of waste would greatly decrease if the climbers themselves become more responsible and disci­plined. He hopes to some­way help with the clean-up of Everest.

Pandey proves no matter how much people try to make fun of you and your passion, self-belief and commitment to your dream pays: “When I asked for help for my climbing expedition with friends and possible sponsors, they didn’t trust me as I didn’t belong to a climbing family.”

Now, besides Everest, Pan­dey has scaled Manaslu (the killer mountain), Amadablam (the most beautiful and the most technical mountain in the world), Island Peak, and Baden Powell Scout Peak, the last of them twice.

This autumn he plans to climb the seven highest moun­tains in the seven continents which, he hopes, will also help with the promotion of Visit Nepal 2020

 On April 29 last year, Minister for Land Management, Coop­eratives and Poverty Allevia­tion Padma Kumari Aryal tabled the Guthi Bill in the upper house of the federal parliament. The intent was to regulate Nepal’s guthis—the cen­turies-old local associations that take care of cultural sites and temples—by effectively nationalizing both the private and public guthis.The proposed legislation met with stern protests from the valley’s Newar community, who look after most of the guthis. The protests grew with public support from across the country, snowballing into the largest mass movement after the second Jana Andolan of 2006. Two months later, the government was forced to withdraw the bill.

Concerns are high again as the government is planning to table a new guthi bill.

“We are trying to table it at the earliest. If things go as planned, we will present the bill in the current parliament session,” says Janak Raj Joshi, spokesperson of the Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation. He says the ministry has been in constant touch with concerned people and organi­zations over the bill.

Minraj Chaudhary, the chairman of Guthi Santhan, the government body responsible for overseeing all guthis, seconds Joshi. “The ministry is frequently consulting guthiyars [trustees] and other concerned peo­ple on the new guthi bill,” he asserts.

But the ‘concerned people’ are not pleased.

Ganpati Lal Shrestha, a guthi campaigner, says the government has kept the stakeholders in the dark about the contents of the new bill. “It is true that the min­istry has organized meetings with us and other concerned bodies. But we haven’t been told what’s in the bill,” says Shrestha, conve­ner of National Identity Protection Joint Struggle Committee, a group that spearheaded last year’s guthi movement.

“We have asked the government to make the draft public before tabling it in the parliament. Surely, it’s better for everyone to know now than to see protests later,” Shrestha adds.

The committee has also warned the ministry not to call perfunctory meetings.

Last year’s bill drew widespread flak as soon as it was tabled. Sec­tions 23 and 24 of the bill were most problematic, as they allowed for a new commission to take away all the rights of guthis and their trustees. Protestors claimed the government was trying to erase the 1,500-year history of guthis by subverting the Guthi Sansthan. They thought the bill benefited only ‘land mafia’ at the cost of Nepal’s cultural heritage. The government, for its part, was unable to come up with a convincing answer on why the bill was tabled to start with. Guthiyar Gautam Shakya, who heads Kathmandu’s Kumari Ghar and Indra Jatra Management Committee, is unhappy with the gov­ernment’s hush-hush attitude.

“A few days back, the ministry had summoned the concerned bodies to discuss the bill. But we are yet to see the draft,” says Shakya. “We believe the guthi properties should be han­dled by guthiyars. The government should limit itself to the role of a guardian.”

Ministry spokesperson Joshi says rumors that the government would take away the guthis’ rights and assets are baseless. “The govern­ment has never thought of interfer­ing with their assets.”

Campaigners agree that the gov­ernment can help the guthis gov­ern themselves better—even with­out exercising total control over them. Social activist Anish Baid­hya says many people are misus­ing Guthi assets, “threatening our culture and identity. So we need some regulation to ensure transparency”.

“We should also be able to estab­lish new guthis,” adds Baidhya. “We recently had problems managing a new Ganesh Mandir. We wanted to do it through a guthi, but existing laws don’t allow that.”

He thinks that if their concerns are overlooked people will once more have no option but to protest.