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The 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns had people either cooking elaborate meals (think Butter Chicken, Prawn Biryani, and Malai Kofta) or restricting their food intake to lose weight, says Rocky Maharjan, nutritionist and trainer who is passionate about body building. Some turned to food for comfort while others wanted to fit into a dress that had always been a little too tight. But food, says Maharjan, is meant to nourish and help your body function at its best.

“This time when you are stuck at home again, reevaluate your relationship with food. Let it be your key to wellness,” he says. 

What Maharjan means is you should use food as a tool to lead a healthy life and not take your equation with it to extremes—where it’s either your best friend or your worst enemy. The key it to be conscious of what you are eating and better understanding your bodies’ requirements.

Bhupal Baniya, nutritionist at Nepal Police Hospital, says most people started taking nutritional supplements during the pandemic. While there’s definitely an upside to popping zinc tablets and sucking on Vitamin C lozenges, you could just as easily get these essential nutrients from food. That way, he says, you don’t run the risk of any kind of toxicity.

“Most people choose quick meals. They use food to satiate their taste buds and nutrition is the last thing on their minds,” say Baniya, adding it would be a good idea to educate yourself a little about food and strive to eat nutritious meals that are filling as well.

If there’s one thing Covid-19 has taught us it’s the importance of good health. And a sure shot way to stay healthy is to ensure you are eating right. The old adage ‘you are what you eat’ couldn’t be truer since the trillions of cells in your body need a constant supply of nutrients for optimal functioning. Food affects these cells and, by extension, your overall health, sleeping habits, brain function, energy levels and mood. 

Maharjan recommends eating fresh, homemade and seasonal food, keeping your medical conditions, if you have any, in mind. Eating in moderation and not staying away from certain food groups are also crucial if you want to stay fit and healthy.

A comprehensive vegetarian diet plan prepared by experts at Danphe Care, a Kathmandu-based healthcare management company. Danphe Care has been providing medical consultations to Covid-19 patients under home isolation. Kabin Maleku, program coordinator, says they are focusing on a holistic approach to Covid care and, for that, the right diet plays an important role. A vegetarian version of the diet plan is also available upon request.

We indulged in copious amounts of turmeric lattes and masala teas during the pandemic. PM Oli even said besar pani could be our savior from the pandemic, a scientifically dubious claim. But herbs and spices do have tons of other health benefits. What’s good about Nepali kitchens, says nutritionist Baniya, is that we already use these goodness-rich spices in our food. You could also tweak your cooking methods to include a variety of spices and condiments.

“Herbs and spices have medicinal properties that help prevent many illnesses and inflammatory conditions,” says Baniya. But just because something is good doesn’t mean you should consume large quantities of it. For instance, excess besar pani could potentially lead to liver problems.

“Most people know only about the benefits of including certain things in their diets. You should also understand how much is enough,” he says.

As it is summer and the days are getting hotter, it’s best to consume warming spices in moderation, advises Dr Rishi Ram Koirala, ayurvedic physician who has been practicing for four decades.

“I recommend you chew five to six pods of black pepper daily as well as have raw onions with Himalayan pink salt,” he says. These, he explains, have anti-microbial properties and destroy mucous.

But a strong immune system is as much a result of eating a balanced diet as it is about giving your body a boost with specific immune-strengthening ingredients like turmeric, ginger, garlic and fenugreek.

Dietician Priyanka Sainju, who works at B&B Hospital in Gwarko, Lalitpur, and at Vatsalya Natural IVF in Naxal, Kathmandu, recommends eating a variety of fruits and vegetables daily. This, she says, is something we all know but also something we all neglect as well.

“I can’t stress the importance of having at least two servings of fruits and vegetables a day. They provide vitamins and minerals the body needs. If macros—carbs, proteins, and fats—are the building blocks of your body, essential nutrients are what convert food to energy, repair cellular damage, and keep your bones, muscles, heart, and brain functioning properly,” she says.

The dietician also suggests abstaining from fried, greasy food and instead opting for whole foods, as close to their natural states as possible.  

Additionally, nutritionist Baniya advices not consuming milk tea immediately before or after meals as well as not eating those things that cause oxidative stress, which is harmful to the body. (A diet rich in fat, sugar, and processed food causes oxidative stress.)

But wellness in these difficult times has to also go beyond healthy eating, says Dr Koirala who is also the director of Ayurveda Health Home, an alternative and holistic health service. He says there are a few basic things you should practice.

First, he recommends oil pulling, an Ayurvedic practice that draws toxins out of your body. All you need to do is take a tablespoon of oil in your mouth and swish it around for five minutes before spitting it out. This lessens your body’s viral load, says Dr Koirala. He advises rinsing your mouth with warm salt water immediately after and following up by drinking lemon water. Dr Koirala recommends consuming the juice of three lemons a day.

“For overall health and wellness, you must learn to manage stress as well. Stress lowers immunity and makes you susceptible to various diseases,” concludes Dr Koirala.

“We should have taken you for the Lantang trek, you badly need to sweat a lot hahaha”, someone I am only acquainted with through work casually said over the phone. I must have met him maybe thrice in formal settings, so, I diplomatically asked him to mind his own business. I still regret not coming out more aggressively about that passive-aggressive body shaming.

In Nepal people do not realize or more often choose to ignore that commenting on someone’s physical attribute or color is wrong. After an incident at a local school, there is a lot of talk online about body shaming and its adverse effects on victims. It is thus important to understand why this has to stop at any cost.

In simple language, body shaming can be understood as the act of humiliating someone by mocking or critically commenting on their body shape, size or color. The question is why do we/they do it? A lot of times people have a certain frame and rule of thumb set by the society on how one should look. Otherwise you are considered “ ugly”, “inappropriate” or an “outcast”. It has become accepted practice to name a person after his/her physical appearance.

Swarna Tamrakar​, the author is a businessperson, prefers to be called connoisseur of DIY and recycle, and is mother to a golden retriever named Ba:la Princess

For example, if a woman is physically large people will call her “Moti, Dalli, Bhaisi, Hatti, or Gaida” or if they are dusky in complexion chances are they will be called “Kali, Andheri, or Koila”. This might sound cute once. But when she is constantly being called that in public, it affects her psyche.

Unfortunately body shaming is something that happens more in your own core circle. Family members constantly coax their kids to stop eating because if they are fat no one will like them. Girls are asked to use facial creams to whiten their skin tone to meet the social standards. The South Asian families are always worried about the girls’ physical attributes, again to avoid being singled out for the rest of their lives. The constant pressures from family, friends and society can have a devastating emotional impact on the girls.

Body shaming mostly starts at an early age at schools and family gatherings, resulting in the kid’s low self-esteem as they start being dissatisfied with their perceived body image set by society or media. This leads to psychological problems like social anxiety also known as social phobia (trouble talking to people, meeting new people and attending social gatherings), anorexia/bulimia (eating disorders characterized by food restriction, fear of gaining weight and strong desire to stay thin), bigorexia (can be referred as reverse anorexia or a body dysorphic disorder that triggers an idea that the body is too small or not muscular enough) as well as serious mental health issues.

It is a lifetime of trauma for the majority of sufferers. Some sink so deep in the trauma, suicide becomes their only way out. It might come as a shock that most people engage in body shaming because of their own insecurities and anger, which they like to vent out on someone else. In the young and adolescents, this is common when they cannot deal with conflicts with peers. Also, at times they are upset, annoyed or intimidated by someone and they don't know any other way than to belittle that person’s appearance.

Both the bullied and the bully need to go for counseling and take professional help. It will take time but the trauma can be healed. A lot of times confronting the bully helps tide over the psychological damage. It is fearsome for anyone to express their true feelings and become vulnerable but until and unless there is that venting out, they will continue to be damaged internally. Finally, the simplest thing we need to practice and the first step towards recovery is self-love and accepting yourself the way you are. After that what anyone says will be as important as a bicycle is to a fish.

Last month, a new chapter opened up in Nepal’s power sector. On March 19, the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX), an electricity trading platform, announced that NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Limited had secured approval for Nepal’s participation in the exchange.

This announcement caps an important milestone in Nepal’s aspiration to integrate with India’s power trading. This is a big achievement for many in and out of the government who have dedicated themselves to securing Nepal’s access to India’s electricity markets.   

For me, the announcement was a moment of great reckoning. Over the past 15 years, I’ve been a critic of Nepal’s strategy on cross-border power trading, cautioning (however I could) against impetuously jumping into India’s competitive markets. It was only fitting, perhaps that the announcement came exactly on the day I finished reading J. G. Farrell’s “The Siege of Kishnapur,” which ended emphatically with these lines: “…he had come to believe that people, a nation, does not create itself according to its best ideas, but is shaped by other forces, of which it has little knowledge.”

Whatever the basis for that strategic choice on power markets integration, for good or bad, Nepal has chosen. A new era now dawns. We must adapt to the competitive forces of Indian power sector. Time to look ahead.

It is time to drop our opposition to the $500-million aid offered under the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact and secure that grant. The promise of the compact funding has accelerated and enabled Nepal’s integration with Indian power markets.

Just a few years ago, Nepal and India were hopelessly at odds on how best to operationalize cross-border electricity trading. Efforts to get an agreement on a cross-border transmission line connecting Butwal (Nepal) with Gorakhpur (India), for example, had stalled. Drawing from experiences of the previous cross-border lines, Nepal proposed to proceed under a government-to-government agreement. India was adamantly opposed.

The promise of aid under the MCC compact unlocked that stalemate. A precondition in the compact required Nepal to secure agreement with India on the Butwal-Gorakhpur line. As the MCC’s pressure built on Nepal, India also dropped its objection to the cross-border line. An agreement was reached, and that line is now on course to be built, without even having to wait for Nepal’s approval of the compact. At the same time, India rapidly accelerated the policy process on cross-border power trading, overcoming a decade of foot-dragging. It framed many of the required rules and policies on cross-border electricity, including the most recent approval that has now allowed Nepal to participate in IEX’s platform.

My previous objection to the MCC grant was on its precondition for a cross-border interconnection. It implicitly pushed Nepal into a strategy of competing against cheap Indian electricity prices without adequate preparedness and safeguards, especially when national consensus on the strategy was still missing.

With the cross-border integration of power markets, my previous objection to the compact is meaningless. Best to go full throttle now: access the grant, build the lines, and be as prepared as possible for the future.

For me, one of the most haunting remarks on Nepal-India electricity trade that will forever be etched in my mind was from the US Ambassador to Nepal, Randy William Berry, who wrote in an op-ed in 2019 about cross-border transmission lines “that will bring Nepal’s power to the consumers who will pay Nepal good money for it. It is a simple fact of geography and economics that means India.”

Many have echoed the ambassador’s sentiments, arguing that Nepal has tremendous opportunity to sell electricity to India and profit from it. Plenty of resources and intellectual capital have gone into shaping that narrative and lobbying for supportive policies. To all those who dedicated themselves to securing Nepal’s integration with Indian power markets, the IEX milestone is a moment to stand up and take the applause.

As important, they must recognize the gravity of what they have accomplished. Failure to build a competitive Nepali power sector that can compete against Indian power prices will be devastating for Nepal, locking it into a permanent dependence on Indian power imports.

Those that forged the narrative on the benefits of cross-border electricity trading for Nepal cannot now scurry off into shadows and hide behind excuses of this constraint or that bottleneck. Whatever needs to be done must get done. They must also stand up to deliver on their promise.          

Views are personal. [email protected]

Four years after Nepal and the US signed the MCC compact, we are back to square one. Those who believed in 2017 that the compact was a devil’s bargain continue to be dead-set against it. The camp pushing it is as adamant about the great good the compact, once ratified, can do for Nepal.

With the Nepal Communist Party government’s near two-thirds majority—while only a simple majority would be needed for the compact’s parliamentary approval—it should have had no trouble getting it passed. But a party faction intent on pulling the rug from under PM Oli would have none of it. Those in this faction saw in the compact American imperial designs writ large. Not coincidentally, the compact’s strongest opponents have also traditionally been seen as China’s biggest enablers in Nepal.   

The MCC compact, as its opponents allege, is indeed a part of the American Indo-Pacific Strategy that is aimed at curtailing China’s rise. For the same reason, in principle, I am opposed to the idea of its parliamentary approval. How can our national legislature approve a pact aimed at one of our only two neighbors? In practice, I don’t see the compact’s ratification as a big issue. In fact, having signed the compact, Nepal would do well to ratify it too.

But I am being two-faced, right? Perhaps. Yet the reality is that Nepal will have to keep engaging with the Americans in the foreseeable future. The reason we established diplomatic ties with the US in 1947 was to use the country as a counterweight to India and China, both of whose influence in Nepal was growing alarmingly. Only through the involvement of a powerful third party like the US, the thinking went, could Nepal preserve its independence. That logic still holds. Can’t Nepal engage with the Americans under some other agreement? We could. But again, there will be no substantive difference.

If not the MCC, we will have to sign on to something similar, for the chief goal of the American foreign policy in Asia will continue to be to check communist China’s rise by supporting democracies in the region, India chiefly. So either Nepal has to stop engaging with the Americans, or we have to agree to do business along mutually beneficial lines. Again, American involvement in Nepal is vital not only to balance China’s presence but also to keep India honest. There is a reason India has always loathed the presence of a third power in its traditional backyard. 

There are no free lunches in international diplomacy and it would be naïve of Nepal to expect one. Moreover, the fundamentals of Nepali foreign policy have not changed and it is in Nepali national interest to widen our options beyond India and China. You don’t have to like the Americans. All that matters is the protection of our national interests in what is a tough geopolitical landscape. Regrettably, the MCC compact has been turned into a political football that has little to do with American foreign policy and a lot with Nepal’s internal power dynamics.

Also strange is our political leaders’ lack of faith in the sovereign parliament. Let the democratic process prevail. And for god’s sake, stop seeing the MCC as a life or death issue for Nepal. It’s not. Again, not a big fan of it but we can’t have our cake and eat it too.