Corner with a Full View

I have to say that #Nepal is a hit among the Instagram crowd too. OMG so so so many photos with the hashtag Nepal, I'm bowled over! I honestly didn't think Nepal would be attracting so many instagram posts, but it does. Initially I wanted to do a year 2014 sneak peek of the best insta shots with #Nepal, but I couldn't. When you have 20 or so photos added every second, that simply becomes a humongous task-something akin to poring over WikiLeaks document I guess. So I tried to zero on in December but even that proved to be too much. I have zero patience to sit through such stuff! If only I had a few cells called "patience" in me I would be doing a PhD seriously! So I went with a week. A day would be too lazy, even for me. Anyway, I persevered for at least a week to come up with this selection of photos with hashtag Nepal. From what I can see, with #Nepal the hits are prayer flags, monks or lots of maroon swish and swash, monkeys, Kathmandu streets, sunlights fi

To not be skipped by any male, while hands are being shaken. My original, full article whose edited version appears in the Kathmandu Post of September 21, 2014 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let me begin this rant by recalling a small incidence that took place around this time last year. A meme was posted by Facebook page of Mahabir Pun, whose caption read "girls have tension about Teej and dar, boys have tension about the ticket price of Nepal vs Afghanistan game". It was the time of Teej and also Nepal Cricket Team was playing in home ground against Afghanistan. If it was pages like 9GAG or others posting such stuff, I would not have cared. But coming from a page of such an esteemed personality who I diligently follow, I cannot even begin to say how offensive and inappropriate I found this post to be. I, along with a few other "outrageous girls" promptly commented on it and th

There are some good and some bad in being left out of the development intersection. You know how it is, the places that never fall into any intersection. The places that escape attention, and lie there all by themselves trapped in time, unheard of for better or worse. There are such places, such pockets in Khotang and Solukhumbu of Eastern Nepal. Those areas which are far from headquarters of both districts or are very much inland from the ever expanding road networks. Those which are neither the High Mountains nor have prominence to any trade route from far and wide. "Hinterland", in sociological jargon. In March I trekked and spent a few nights in this very area during extreme weather. Snow, fog and slippery path through steep slopes made my traverse really dangerous. But I am not complaining. What I went through for a few days, the locales here live that life every day, every month, all their life. There are small villages interspersed like tiny dots throughout th

To be scared thinking about scary situations, In the middle of night, after you wake up, feeling all scared and tight and immobile, When at night, you dream the most real dream. Crossing through a dark fearful bridge alone at midnight, which you have always feared crossing at midnight, although neither that bridge nor your dream are real.

I'm going to be a tech Guru today, and try to outline simple steps on how to edit your movies in Windows Movie Maker to get that vintage effect.  Its not even a tutorial, just a trick, for those who do not know already.  Of course working in Adobe Premiere would reduce all this work, but then windows movie maker is free while Premiere costs $$$ so many of us cannot simply afford.  Check my embedded youtube video here, if you want to feel what kind of "vintage" I'm talking about. This is a short cropped clip of another video-just to show you a demo within 24 seconds. You can check out the full video here -it is a Nepali classic song which my cousin did a cover of.

A Dolpopa has his bullet wound covered with layers of khata (sacred silk clothes) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Possession of prized aphrodisiac; conquering the Top of the world; Glory of hosting World Cup Football- all stained and littered with blood and sweat of my fellow country people. Plight of a poor country's marginalized citizens. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- June 3 to June 11 7 days That's more or less how many days it would take one to reach Dho Tarap of Dolpa, from capital Kathmandu. More or less I say because I have never been there. It took me two days to reach Phoksundo from Dunai the district headquarter, and people said that it would take another day or two by foot to reach Dho. June 3 when police personnel mercilessly beat locals of Dho Tarap - a small settlement in high pastures of Dolpa district. Very much a place shrouded in mystery and enchantment-mainly

Everything!?! Like the scenario before half time of a typical Indian or Nepali movie where the hero is the ultimate crime fighter but who has not quite found his ground yet-and so the city where he resides is still infested with heinous crimes, and what not-I find myself squarely planted in that "before half time" scenario. All the crime dramas that I see unfolding in such movies-corrupt cops, even more corrupt justice system, atrocities right in front of people's eyes, power, paisa and the "bad" having a field day-everything is happening right before me. My life is not a movie, where I reside is not a movie set. Yet everything so eerily resembles the plot of such badly told, heavily exaggerated, and repugnant male dominant movie. In such movies, the heroine or the victims generally feel helpless until the hero comes along, fights all the bad guys, the corruption the system everything until everything is sorted. He makes everybody's life perfect.

And no, its not ncell I'm talking about. Enjoy the photos of this purple enchantress, which has veiled Kathmandu's ugliness for a while. Although its true identity as to whether this is Jacaranda or Sirish or Mimosa is being contested in "experts" circle, its aura and charm is nevertheless incontestable. Like Shakespeare said, "what's in a name"? Ha its impossible to see these "high"nesses really this upclose. This was a major crop on top of major zoom And a video too :) In instagram: http://instagram.com/p/oDHfppuATT/

Whether any body has noticed or not, but there's an interesting give and take going on for about a few weeks in The Kathmandu Post . First there was the op-ed by Shradha Ghale "Whose Discourse?"  - based primarily on academic work by Simon Robins - which put forth the view that fundamentally the truth and reconciliation discourse going on at that time in Nepal should be for/of the victims - from who the issue has been largely hijacked owing to, among other things, their socio-economic marginalization. Then came this piece  "Whose Reconciliation"?  by two writers who were hell bent on disproving/disagreeing everything the earlier op-ed stated/implied/suggested. It went a notch further than that and established the writer duos' own agendas too, in the name of highlighting the flaws within Ghale's piece. I might have my biases here about not particularly liking this piece, as the writers' too see to have against Ghale's arguments. Somethings y

My "dui sabda" about the Nepali film " Kabaddi"  starring Rishma Gurung, Dayahang Rai, Nischal Basnet et. al I can tell you straight away that Kabaddi is going to be the "worst" Nepali film that I have watched this year. Why? Because it is the only film that I'll be watching. Kabaddi is also going to be the "best" Nepali film that I have watched this year, precisely because of the same reason. And a few more. Let me count how many years it has been since I last stepped onto a theater to watch a Nepali film. I cannot because its too many. Which in itself should describe the strange appeal that Kabaddi had on me. To start with its trailer, it had that pull factor which made me- a reluctant, cynic passive movie hater-drag myself into a hall. So for the promotion, I will give the team a 5 on 5. Its all relative of course, the only thing that might have pulled me into theaters could be the lead hero/heroine who were so offbeat  for mainst

"Or not" means that it is my choice whether I blog meaning write/publish a post or not. If I did not have a blog (or at least the assurance in my head that I have a blog which I can peruse anytime a brilliant world-changing idea occurs to me), I would not really be writing or even storing up ideas. Another scenario, if I was writing for magazines/papers, I would have to be accountable to so many things. Mainstream or even alternative media mostly want nicely packaged stuff. You cannot go on an emotional monologue, or ignore every rule of grammar. When you say certain things, if the only conviction of that thing that you are saying is your heart, it is simply not acceptable.

Looking into the social media posts about Dilshova Shrestha, I am both amazed and annoyed at how quick we are at jumping into bandwagons. It is great to see that so many of us are able to access information so quickly, and are open to participating in ongoing social issues that matter. But for some of us, its more than just participating in the dialogue. The annoying part is that we are not only jumping into one bandwagon but frequently changing into whichever side seems to be winning at  the moment. Is it our childhood insecurity of being ignored or left out, that we are so intent in belonging to a certain group, and a group which has the power for that matter? The word "opportunist", and rats leaving sinking ships come to mind when I see the same people questioning Dilshova's integrity an hour ago, praise her like she is the Angel incarnate herself in another post.

When I make an effort to wake up early, because you are coming to give me a ride to my office, and I dont even think about it until late in the evening when I am paralyzed by yawns, then I know that I've come more than half way. In the slightly uncomfortable atmosphere of a restaurant whose bill is not exactly easy on your purse, I elaborately share a funny out-of-place story to you. About a "somebody" from a small town with a mundane life, on whose mundane life one day a stranger comes. They fall in love, although that "somebody" knows that the stranger is not there to stay. So while they are in love, and the few days that they were going to have would be heaven, there still was tragedy looming in the future. Which made their time together precious, yet tinged with a tragic air. That somebody is already bidding the love of their life a mental farewell. Its as if the love is there, but not really there. It is so real, yet so unreal. Th

Every year, since so many years before, people (male and female) from the villages beneath Everest go to the Namche area as porters, students, cooks, house workers, suppliers of crops, and small time vendors mostly during tourist season. But some stay throughout the year and some throughout their lives, waiting upon the houses of locals who now are in Kathmandu or overseas. The most expensive tourist destination in Nepal, the Everest region, has benefited the inhabitants in and around the base camp much in terms of economic growth. Apart from the peak tourist season, its no surprise that they do not stay much in their native place as they already have enough resources to move to Kathmandu or even New York for that matter. But those other people, those who come from villages beneath Everest, theirs is a different tale.