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Q. What is your earliest childhood memory?
A. Peeking at other dancers and trying to copy their steps.

Q. Who motivates you the most?
A. My family.

Q. Who would you like to dance opposite to someday?
A. Well, I like dancing with Aashma Biswokarma from my group.

Q. What is the hardest part of being a professional dancer?
A. Making others understand that this profession requires a lot of patience to be financially stable and recognized.

Q. What do you do in your leisure time?
A. Play Playstation and listen to music.

Q. Your favorite travel destination?
A. China.

Q. A quote to live by?
A. ‘Dream big’.

Q. What is the most precious thing that you own?
A. Cartoonz Crew.

We’ve all heard tales of Yogis and sages meditating throughout history. While some meditated to gain knowledge, others did so to acquire strengths rivalling those of Gods. But nowadays, meditation is practiced for simpler benefits. Many are turning to it as a way to enhance mindfulness, reduce stress, or to hone their ability to concentrate deeply.

Aspiring musician Nischal Baidya has been practicing Quan Yin meditation since he was 14. At the age of 24 now, he says being introduced to meditation at a young age helped him in his creative endeavors. A student of ethnomusicology, Baidya says regular meditation helps him stay calm and create music. “It has made my skills sharper, and also motivated me to pursue other arts like sketching. It makes me more decisive in my day-to-day activities as well.” He doesn’t ever feel anxious now, he adds. Baidya reckons he even understands people better after he learned to meditate. 

Myriad benefits

People are drawn to meditation for various reasons, including spiritual and health. Over the years, many medical studies—though not all—have shown the usefulness of meditation for people suffering from anxiety, depression and other mental health issues, and for enhanced general well-being. Brain researchers say meditation, combined with proper behavioral therapy, may promote better psychiatric health. Certain forms of meditation are also helpful in fighting addictions. Besides these benefits, meditation has proven beneficial to the elderly suffering from memory loss and dementia.

The work of Marsha Linehan, who developed Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), is one example of the successful integration of mindfulness meditation with psychotherapy for the treatment of character pathology, depression, addictions and eating disorders. DBT has helped legitimize meditation as a credible component of psychiatric treatment. “The efficacy of meditation in psychiatric treatment depends on the disorder; it might work for some but not for others,” says Trishna Bhos Bista, a clinical psychiatrist currently practicing psychiatry at the Manoshastra Counselling & Research Center, Lalitpur. Usually, meditation techniques like Muscle Relaxation Therapy and Abbreviated Relaxation Therapy are used along with DBT to treat various anxiety-related disorders. But Bista also puts in a word of caution: “As a form of treatment though, meditation won’t be effective until the underlying causes of the disorder are properly dealt with.” 

Baidya can attest to meditation’s medicinal benefits; he claims regular meditation helped him alleviate chronic migraine. “I was not meditating in order to cure my migraine, but I noticed that my headaches gradually became few and far between. Earlier I was worried that migraine was a lifelong ailment, but apparently not,” says Baidya. 

Some even claim that meditation has cured serious conditions like cancer, but the veracity of such claims cannot be established. Nor can claims of otherworldly experiences—seeing the spirit of loved ones who are deceased, encountering godly beings, attaining a state of Samadhi, or escaping the Karmic cycle of death and rebirth—be scientifically verified. Yet that has not deterred dedicated meditation practitioners.   

“I meditate daily, as much as I can, in the mornings or evenings. Even when I am busy, I usually find some time for it,” says Ghanashyam Khadka, 39, a senior sub-editor at the Kantipur daily. Khadka has been practicing Vipassana meditation for over a decade now. “Meditation is varied, and its effects largely depend on the practitioner and the type of meditation they pursue. For me, it was mainly about calmness and peace in the beginning, but now I’m moving toward a more spiritually transformative approach to meditation,” he adds. 

To each her own

In the view of Pratikshya Kattel, a teacher at Madan Bhandari Memorial College and a striving writer, there are two types of meditation—passive and active. Passive meditation is when one sits down in a certain posture, usually with closed eyes, and focuses on something, such as one’s breath. Active meditation, on the other hand, is the state of constant mindfulness, in every activity. Kattel outlined the philosophy of mindfulness presented by Thích Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk, in his book The Miracle of Mindfulness. “I prefer active meditation, which entails being completely focused, engaged and mindful about one’s actions. That’s much tougher than passive meditation.” She also tried meditating at Osho’s Tapoban, but didn’t enjoy it. “Once you get the hang of active mindfulness, it quickly becomes orgasmic,” claims Kattel.  

Whether and what kind of benefits practitioners derive from meditation is probably subjective, but what is certain is that meditation is steadily gaining in popularity. Both Baidya and Khadka enthusiastically recommend meditation for everyone. “I believe kids should be taught meditation from their school years. It will help them grow wiser and excel in their studies as well as in other interests,” Baidya adds.  

Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli historian and author of the bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, has said in a number of interviews that meditation has helped him enormously to concentrate and write. In fact, meditation is one of the lessons for everyone to adopt in his recent book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. If you are interested, plenty of organizations with various religious leanings teach meditation for free. There is a lot of meditation literature online as well.

There is an acute shortage of water in Udayapur-gadhi, a popular destination of historical importance in eastern Nepal (Gadhi in Nepali means a fort). King Uday Chandra of the Sen dynasty used to rule from this fort in the late 15th century. Even though the government has invested in infrastructure to attract tourists, lack of water has affected their stay in the area. 

“Water is a basic need. How can we expect the tourists to stay if we cannot even give them enough water?” asks Bodhkumar Ghimire, a local. “Some tourists come here despite the problem, but they do not stay long.” Man Bahadur Magar, chair of the rural municipality, says the federal government has allocated a budget of Rs 10 million to develop Udayapur-gadhi as a tourist destination. 

Rs 5 million has already been spent on the preservation of the dilapidated fortress. The remaining budget will be spent on infrastructure construction to attract tourists, says Magar. He, however, laments the lack of provision for drinking water. With the available budget, it is not possible to bring in water from a river that is 13 km away, says Magar. 

Hooked on tankers 

Kumar Rokka, another local, says some residents meet their needs by buying water. They pay Rs 4,000 for 4,000 liters of water that a tanker brings in. Usually, hotel operators and businesses make use of the tanker service, says another local Gopal Khatri. Ordinary people have to go to Jogi Dhara and Kopche Dhara, which are 2 km away, to fetch water, adds Rokka.  

The water shortage has also affected homestay businesses, which have been in operation for about five years. Then District Development Committee (DDC) and the Tourism Board had launched a homestay program to provide accommodation services to domestic and foreign tourists and to encourage local women to engage in entrepreneurial activities.

After a flood swept away a water source on July 13, the locals get tap water only once a week. “It is hard to run homestays due to problems in water management,” says Indra Kumari Rai, President of the Panchawati Community Homestay Committee. “The situation is so bad we cannot even offer drinking water to our guests. The condition of washrooms is worse. As a result, tourists who come to stay for a week leave after two days,” laments Rai. 

“Different projects have to be turned down just because of the dearth of water,” says the committee secretary Rita Kumari Dhamala. “The DDC first took us on observation trips to homestays in other areas, and we were inspired to start the business here. Unfortunately, we have reached a point where we have to close down.”

Multi-year failure 

Udayapur-gadhi has about 50 houses and a population of around 1,000. Although the government introduced a multi-year project six years ago to solve the water problem, locals say it has been ineffective. Rs 10.54 million was allocated for this project, but it did not work as the fund was released in annual installments. Rs 2 million was issued in the first year, Rs 5 million in the second year, and Rs 6.31 million in the third year. 

Due to the small size of the annual budget, water pipes and tanks are being worn out. “Even though we got the pipes, we could not lay them as we did not have money for digging,” says Dipak Rokka, another local.

I hope you all had a wonderful, peaceful, light, and musical Tihar. For me, during Tihar, the Kathmandu Valley somehow reverts to an earlier time. With oil lamps and orange marigold garlands, juxtaposed with electrical lights over tall buildings, the crisp evening air is almost glowing. While the youngsters now coming round singing deusi-bhailo may be equipped with speakers, guitars and the latest rock numbers, to me Tihar is a time of music which also reflects times gone by. Which brings me to a band that blends Nepali and world music into a fusion of unique compositions, Trikaal.

Trikaal started out with three members back in 2002. This was the time I was first introduced to their music and to one of the founding members, Santosh Bhakta Shrestha, who plays the israj. At that time Trikaal, Sur Sudha and Vajra were the big three names in classical fusion music. And their music seemed to permeate the air and bring the spirit of the Kathmandu Valley to life. Disappearing from the scene around 2013, I was pleasantly surprised to see Trikaal back together and performing last month. Having kept in touch with Shrestha over the years through other musical contexts I ask him to explain why the reappearance now.

“In the early days we played mainly for tourists and a select audience who appreciated our music. In order to widen the audience base to include more Nepalis we created a space for other musicians to come and join us, the original three members,” says Shrestha. He goes on to explain that with a total nine band members of equal standing and who also worked with other bands/sectors it became difficult to manage rehearsal time. So despite them opening up their music to a wider Nepali audience and with three albums under their belt, the band dissolved in 2013. 

Stating a lack of motivation as well as other commitments as the main reasons behind the disbanding, Navaraj Gurung (tabala) says there was a lack of continuity in those days, but which is now a key element in the band’s revival. And the revival comes not a moment too soon: I was talking to a young, ‘fusion’ musician just before Tihar and mentioned Trikaal. “Who?” he asked.  When I played one of their tracks he did recognize it from his teenage days, but was unaware of the band’s name.  

So what motivated Trikaal to reform in 2019? A recent CD and book launch by Aman Shahi (CD) and Salil Subedi (book, relating to singing bowl sound healing as performed by Shahi) brought the current five members together. “Aman insisted Trikaal perform at his launch,” says Nikhil Tuladhar (percussion).  The band’s performance, blending perfectly with the melodious, soothing sounds of the singing bowls, was received so well by the audience and press, Tuladhar thought ‘why not continue together and relaunch Trikaal?’ So this is exactly what they did: Shrestha and Gurung from the original band and both Eastern classical music trained, were joined by Tuladhar, Nagendra Rai (flute) and Suren Lama (guitar).  

With a wide range of experience between them from blues, rock and folk to studio work these five members have come up with a unique sound that incorporates the classical fusion of the original Trikaal (and the spirit of the Kathmandu Valley) with a fresh and modern approach to Nepali classical music. To quote the band, “Trikaal blends each member’s background to create soulful themes and improvised musicality.”  Further, Shrestha describes the current line-up as a ‘balanced team’. Indeed with a potential Pokhara tour coming up and plans underway to record one or two original tracks this ‘team’ seems set to create a new audience of listeners as well as bringing nostalgia to the older crowd.

Keep an eye on Trikaal’s Facebook (Trikaal Tantriks) page for upcoming events, gigs and music tracks.