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 It isn’t November yet, the time of the year when the Oscar season begins, and we already get to see big Hollywood studios and small independent production houses champion their films to make the cut for the Academy Awards or the Oscars, as they are popularly called. In case of international films vying for a spot for ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ category, the Oscar fever has already taken a strong hold. Most countries submitted their films in the last week of September to meet the October 1 deadline. Nepal’s submission this year is ‘Panchayat’, a coming-of-age film on menstrual taboo set in a rural village during the Panchayat period. The movie is directed by Shivam Adhikari and features veteran Nepali actor Saroj Khanal and Neeta Dhun­gana. Its chances of getting noticed and making it to the final shortlist look not only dim but pitch black.

The film released in March this year to lukewarm critical response and negligible commercial collec­tion. It had disappeared without a trace until it was announced as Nepal’s official entry to the Oscars. Surprisingly, Panchayat was one of only three films that actually applied to the Nepali selection committee. The other two were Samten Bhutia’s Maoist-insurgency based ‘Tandro’ and Japanese filmmaker Toshiaki Itoh’s ‘My Love: Promise for Kath­mandu’ that dealt with the 2015 Nepal Earthquake.

Just like Panchayat, the two films had no commercial or critical track record to be proud of. In the absence of real competition, the selection committee has the right not to submit a film for the year, but our committee nonetheless chose to hand a token victory to one film out of a tiny pool of mediocre films.

This is rather disappointing because the last two films to rep­resent Nepal—Min Bahadur Bham’s ‘Kalo Pothi’ (2016) and Deepak Rau­niyar’s ‘White Sun’ (2017)—at least had a visible presence at some of the world’s high-tier film festivals and enjoyed good coverage not only in national dailies but in international press as well. Both Bham and Rau­niyar had received various inter­national film funds to make their films and collaborated with foreign producers who hustled to help the directors get festival attention and crack international distribution deals. That still wasn’t enough.

Even when our films are in a slightly better position to compete, the Academy’s tricky and controver­sial selection process makes sure it trips us short of the final shortlist. At present the Academy picks its final nominations for Best Foreign Language Film through a two-phase filtration process.

In the first phase, all the eligi­ble submissions are viewed by the category specific award general committee members who cast a secret ballot. The top six choices are determined from these votes, while the executive committee of Foreign Language Film Award has been bestowed a special power to select three additional films, thus putting out a final shortlist of nine. In the second phase, the award com­mittee members view the films from the shortlist and votes are taken to determine the final five nominees for the category.

The general members of the Foreign Language Film committee have a history of favoring European films. Since 1958 European countries have swept the award 56 times while non-European ones have managed to win it only 14 times. As a response to the Euro-bias criticism, the afore­mentioned executive committee was formed in 2008 to help make an eclectic set of nominations. But the elbowing out of non-European films is still very much visible, as generally three out of five nominees are still films from France, Italy, Spain, Ger­many, Sweden or Hungary.

For small films coming from small countries like Nepal, European films will remain heavyweight con­tenders. And it’s not that European dominance has always hampered Nepal at the Oscars. Actually Nepal owes a lot to France for its only Oscar short-list, ‘Himalaya’ (which is popularly known here as ‘Cara­van’). ‘Himalaya’, directed by Eric Valli, was a French production and before 2005, countries were only allowed to submit films in their offi­cial language. This barred France from submitting the film, which had Tibetan and Nepali languages, as its own entry. So to apply for Oscars, the production company was forced to register it from Nepal—a country submitting a film for the first time. In 1999, Valli was already a reputed documentary filmmaker and had been nominated for an Oscar seven years before. That led to the film’s recognition during the voting and its eventual nomination.

Thus we don’t deserve to bask in the glory of ‘Himalaya’, and call it our nation’s cinematic achievement at the Oscars. We didn’t rightful­ly earn it and such luck won’t be repeated again. If Nepal wants a serious shot at the Oscars, our film development body must play an active role. It should grow up from its passive role of just submitting films. Our films need right amount of promotional funding to make them competitive. It will take tre­mendous amount of PR and theatri­cal screenings for the voting jury to actually value our film.

These goals are to be achieved in the long run. In the meantime we need a national film funding system that extends Nepali films’ global outreach and grooms filmmaking talent. There is no shortage of tal­ent here. Missing are programs that help local directors make art house movies and guide them to brand Nepali films in big league film fes­tivals like Venice (where White Sun premiered). Until and unless we have more Min Bahadur Bhams and Deepak Rauniyars, Oscars would remain a pipedream! o

 It is not uncommon to read almost every day how both our neighbors, in fact the whole world, want Nepal to have political stability and economic growth, and that it’s our lead­ers who are hell-bent on doing the exact opposite. And it is also not uncommon to read how our neighbors have decided to pursue a common policy on Nepal after the Xi-Modi Wuhan Summit. (How our analysts came to know about what was dis­cussed there remains a mystery. As is our wont, we have decided not to question the analysts about the source of their information, and to talk of the Wuhan Summit as if we were there when the two leaders were talking.)We have read these things so many times that most of us actu­ally start believing this humbug.

To make sense of what is hap­pening here, we need to personify Nepal, her neighbors and whoso­ever we believe has interests here. Believe me, this makes it easi­er to understand things. There’s absolutely no need to use jargons such as geopolitics, geostrategic and trickle down effect, and what not, to describe what’s happening here. It can be done in a much simpler and plainer way.

Imagine your neighbor’s house, a small house with a small gar­den. The neighbor (read: Nepal) is always drunk. The boundary walls have collapsed. The front gate is broken. The lawn is a total mess and it’s a mess inside as well.

Then you buy a car and decide to park in your neighbor’s driveway, not because you lack parking space. You do it just for the heck of it, just like the Nike ad—‘Just do it’. The neighbor says nothing. Then you decide to park it in his lawn, the neighbor says nothing. Then you start using his kitchen, the neighbor says noth­ing. Then you sleep in his bed, again nothing.

Seeing you do all this, others in the block start doing the same. They too start parking their cars there, and using the drunk neigh­bor’s kitchen and bedroom. In essence, everybody in the block now owns the house. You have problems with the others when you come home from work and that somebody has already parked his/her car there, or has slept in the neighbor’s bedroom that you have come to think of very much as your own.

The next day you come a lit­tle earlier from work and park your car in your neighbor’s house and maybe park your wife’s car as well, before the others do it, and maybe have your dog guard the bedroom. But others aren’t as stupid as you make them out to be, and the next day when you and your wife go to work and you have the dog guarding your own premises, they take control of the driveway, kitchen and the bedroom of the “com­mon” house.

Now, what do you do? Since your neighbor is always drunk and doesn’t seem to mind any intrusion, you lure your neigh­bor’s children with candies: hey, take these, they are good and if you want more you need to make sure that nobody except me uses your house and driveway. The malnourished little children hap­pily oblige.

They shout and protest in vain when others come and park their cars and use the bedroom. The others also employ the same trick as you so the children don’t create a scene the next time: lure the children with candies. But since the children are taking candies from all and promising everyone the same thing, they shout in uni­son when you park your car in their driveway. Then you come up with another ingenious idea. Of the five children, you only start giving candies, much more than before, to three and promise them more candies.

But, again, the others aren’t stupid as well. They do the same to those three children. Then you think of another smart idea: have the children carve out their own “territory” by teach­ing them about ownership and property rights. Divide and rule, so to speak. You will pamper the three chosen ones with candies and have them do what you want. The other two would then have no option but come to you for candies. Then you have the loyalty of everyone and they will shout in unison for your interests. Brilliant, you reckon you are no less than Chanakya or his shrewder version, Kautilya, or Machiavelli.

But again others aren’t stupid as you make them out to be. They too have read their Arthashastra and the Prince and maybe Kissing­er as well, and they do the same. And you are left thinking what to do next.

The neighbor is still drunk and in his own world, oblivious to things around him or pretending to be so because he knows he is too weak to do anything

Anyway, moving on from Dashain… I love Tihar! For an expat living in Nepal (other than those married to locals or having close family ties here), Tihar is something we can celebrate by our­selves. Even without going out of your own home you automatically become involved when the bhailo deusi singers come around. Tradi­tionally a few handfuls of rice, some sel roti and a few pennies perhaps, displayed lovingly on a nanglo with a butter lamp and flowers for deco­ration, were handed out to the sing­ers. Now this is frowned on by the groups of youths with their portable loud (loud!) speakers and modern as well as classical numbers!

They want money, and not just a few pennies! It is, however, all good fun and after you have dealt with the local youth group, the local children, and the local wom­an’s group, you can always switch off your lights and pretend you are not at home. Remember to put in your ear plugs! For readers who are newly arrived in Nepal, be pre­pared—have sufficient small notes for the little children who will come around, or shyly be singing and dancing in the street. Sweets won’t be refused either.

Have larger notes for the ‘main’ groups from your area. And don’t forget to enjoy the spectacle. While not akin to Halloween, remember back to when you were small and the fun you had going from door to door and how hopeful you were that you would get some goodies? Bhailo deusi singers are hopeful too!

I’ve been here long enough that I put my own lamps on the veranda and open my door to let Laxmi in. My first Tihar in Kathmandu was at the late Jan Salter’s house, and she, using traditional oil lamps, set a precedent for me. I might not use oil lamps, but I make sure, even if I go out for the evening, the lamps (candles in little clay pots) are lit on my return.

Being that my ‘Nepali family’ are Buddhist, they don’t celebrate Tihar at home so we usually go out to the ‘Garden of Dreams’ on Laxmi Puja where we can enjoy the whole garden being a blaze of light and the children can play on the ping (festival swing) that is installed for the period. Most likely we will head over to ‘Fire and Ice’ for what has become our ‘traditional’ Tihar food. Well, pizzas are round aren’t they, just like sel!

Speaking of food, hard on the heels of Tihar comes Chhat which is celebrated in the Eastern Tarai, particularly around Janakpur. Chhat celebrates the sun god, Surya, who is welcomed by worshipers who gather by the many ponds to greet the sunrise. Like all festi­vals, Chhat has its speciality food. My first trip to Janakpur took place during Chhat some 15 years ago. I was introduced then to delicacies such as anarsa (similar to a donut), curryburry (little balls of spiced masuri dal), and rashiyaw (rice based sweet dish of coconut, dried dates and ginger). Oh my mouth is watering now. So maybe this year after lighting the Tihar lamps I will head on down to Janakpur to wel­come the sun and eat some tasty homemade food! o

 Two days after summoning the first ever meeting of the Inter-province Council, a constitutional mechanism to resolve disputes between the provinces and the center, in early September, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli decided to abrupt­ly cancel it. He was reportedly furious at the nine-point declara­tion made by the chief ministers following their conclave held in Pokhara—right before the meet­ing—that squarely blamed the fed­eral government for withholding authority and resources required for the smooth functioning of the provincial structures.The prime minister’s anger may be understandable from a party functionary point of view given that six out of seven chief ministers are his subordinates in the party, but not acceptable for the head of a federal gov­ernment. Regardless of party affiliations, chief ministers are heads of autonomous subnational governments elected by people of the province.

Beyond the fire and fury of the news headlines, the nine-point declaration offers a clear road­map for ending the gridlock at the provincial level. The provinces have three interrelated problems: absence of laws, lack of person­nel and meager resources. The provincial government by now ought to have most laws enabling to maintain law and order, deliver services and implement develop­ment projects within the provinc­es, but they don’t. The onus lies with the federal parliament to pass most of these laws, clearly delegating the authority as pro­vided in the Constitution.

The center has been sitting on the provincial civil and local civ­il service bills that would have enabled them to do their own hiring. Provincial governments have no control over the exist­ing officials deputed by the center, as an interim measure; moreover, they are transferred frequently without consulting the provincial authorities. It makes sense for them to demand that the center allow them to do temporary hiring while they wait for the laws to be passed in the federal parliament.

The provincial governments also have no control over the law and order apparatus in the province. Even on this front, Kathmandu is sitting on a law to create provincial police force—while meddling in the affairs of the subnational governments through the Chief District Officers (CDOs) who continue to defy the provincial governments by virtue of being under the federal govern­ment. The chief ministers have merely requested that CDOs also report to the provincial govern­ment alongside the federal gov­ernment until a provincial police force is created.

Resource distribution is anoth­er issue that is creating friction between the two tiers of govern­ment. The Natural Resource and Fiscal Commission, as stipulat­ed in the Constitution, is long overdue. Without it, distribution of natural and other financial resources have been left to the mercy of federal government. This has also prevented clarity on local and provincial taxations—prolonging an uncertain fiscal environment for citizens and busi­nesses. Among other things, the declaration made by the chief ministers also demands an apex body under the prime minister’s leadership to implement federal­ism, besides calling for establish­ment of a permanent secretariat for Inter-Province Council. Noth­ing in their demands appears to be out of line.

Perhaps the problem lies else­where. The prime minister and much of his party were reluc­tant federalists prior to the uni­fication, more so in the case of province two. But one had hoped that the reality of governing a nascent federal system, along­side the obligation of deliver­ing prosperity, would force them to appreciate the impor­tance of delegating authority to subnational structures. As one of Oli’s party subordinates and Chief Minister of Gandaki prov­ince Prithivi Subba Gurung cor­rectly pointed out recently, the fear of province two is being used as a justification to deprive all the provinces of autonomy enshrined in the constitution.

Federalism will fail if the center continues to employ half-measures that only seem to increase financial burden on the taxpayers without attendant ben­efits of the system O