THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

Nation Weekly, May 31-June 6, 2004 Sushma Joshi Five years ago, I was walking in Patan when I felt the urge to go into the Kwa Bahal, a Buddhist monastery popularly known as the "Golden Temple". It was a quiet summer afternoon. The temple complex was deserted, but one of the men came out and started talking to me. "Young people," he said, "are no longer interested in the old rituals and traditions anymore. Foreigners are more interested in traditional Newari religion than Nepalis." Then he went on to talk about one such foreigner who had spent a long time learning everything about the guthi at the temple. This man, he said, was named David Gellner, and he had written many books. David Gellner himself was present to give a lecture at the Social Sciences baha on May 27. Gellner is university lecturer of anthropology at Oxford University, and is currently a visiting professor at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. His topic, interestingly, refuted the cl...

Nation Weekly, May 31-June 6, 2004 A Mercy Mission Taking an innovative model from Kalimpong and Jaipur as examples, the Katmandu Animal Treatment Center is trying to control the population of street dogs by sterilizing them BY SUSHMA JOSHI What do Maha, the famed comedian team of Madan Krishna Shrestha and Haribansha Acharya, and Ani Choying, a nun who’s gone global with her extraordinary Buddhist songs, have in common? Besides their fame and high profile, they share an interest in ending the suffering of the dogs who roam the streets of Kathmandu. “There’s a feeling in Nepal that a good project can only be started with large amounts of international funds,” says Khageshwar Sharma, who manages the Kathmandu Animal Treatment Center (KAT). “But we wanted to show that we can do it with local support.” The idea behind KAT was simple enough. Everybody living in Kathmandu has memories, or heard stories, of piles of poisoned dogs being driven away on tractors. Dog owners in the city feel shi...

Inner Vision Nation Weekly, May 31-June 6, 2004 Reprinted in Blind World Nepal. Inner Vision. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Sushma Joshi, Nation Weekly Magazine. At a time when leaders in Nepal seem to be groping for direction, there is a leader out there who sees very clearly where he's heading. Narbahadur Limbu, chairman of the Nepal Association for the Blind (NAB), has a smile on his face as he says: "When there’s a will, there’s a way.” Mr.Limbu wants to be the first blind man in Nepal to get a Ph.D. He's attempting this challenge, he says, not just because it would be an individual achievement for him, but because it is a visible first step for an entire community of people who remain unable to access education at the higher level. "I am one of the blind who should not have been blind," says Mr. Limbu, a charismatic man with a soft smile. Mr. Limbu was born in a village in Terhathum in 1963. At the age of...

I had a solo exhibition of my paintings at Gallery 9, an independent gallery started by artists in Lazimpat, Kathmandu, in 2004. This report was published in Kantipuronline.com, the online venture of the Kathmandu Post which has since been incorporated as part of the digital online presence of the newspaper and is no longer a separate entity. The reporter who filed this report was quite young, so I wanted to clarify some points: I was explaining to him that Claire Burkett, the founder of the Janakpuri Women's Art Project, had rented an apartment in our home when I was 18, so I was influenced by the piles of folk art which I saw in the house. Despite taking courses at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design in visual art, I wanted to draw in a more simple manner, so I deliberately tried to copy their folk style. The uneven crosses took me some time to draw, because I needed to un-train myself from drawing perfect lines. I was mimicking the Janakpuri women's bo...

Collateral Damage Nation Weekly, May 24-30, 2004

Nation Weekly, May 17-23, 2004 Art & Society The excitement of installation lies in its novelty, its use of mixed media and its daring breakage of narrative. In Kathmandu, installation is still a new art form, still in the act of destabilizing the supremacy of paintingBY SUSHMA JOSHI Big signboards painted on fabric greeted the viewer with this ques tion last week in Babar Mahal Revisted: Who art thou? Usually, the answer would be: Thou art part of the expatriate crowd, the upper middle class and the poor journalists who frequent the openings at the Siddhartha Art Gallery. This gathering, fortunately, was a bit more mixed—it had attracted a substantial number of people from the Nepali art world, along with little girls decked out in fashionable outfits who had come to view their cousin’s art opening. Sujan Chitrakar, the artist, has published an entire text to accompany his artworks. The text, titled “Utopian Introspection: Random Expressions within Defined Periphery” is heavy read...

The Buddhist Behind The Camera Wayne’s photos are moved and angered by the same existence that troubled Prince Siddhartha BY SUSHMA JOSHI Nation Weekly, May 9-16 2004 The oft-repeated complaint about Buddhists, especially Western ones living in Nepal, is that they are so engrossed in their meditation practice that they have a difficult time naming the prime minister. The outside world is perceived through a transcendental blur. Wayne Amtzis is a welcome exception to this stereotype. “That’s an interesting shape over there,” says Wayne, pointing to a crack in the concrete with a twinkle in his eye. “It looks like a Buddha. No, more like a rabbit.” The first impression of irrepressible Wayne is that he does not have any holy cows tied up in his backyard. In the garden, Wayne has sheets and sheets of his old poems which have been eaten by insects. When the poet, who keeps no backups, recently found his old poetry in such shape, he did not get into a fit of depression. He took photographs...

SOLDIERS WITH SCHOOLBAGS Many of the widely reported “abductions” are more a coercion to attend cultural programs. But there are also unfounded claims that the Maoists are trying to raise a 50,000-strong child militia BY SUSHMA JOSHI Nation Weekly, May 9-16, 2004 On April 21, newspapers reported that the Maoists had abducted 162 people, including 120 students, from the villages of Subhang and Bharapa in Panchthar. The papers weren’t clear when they had been abducted and the local residents were at a loss to explain why. Next day, 1,000 more were taken hostage from the villages in Panchthar and Taplejung—neither of them a Maoist stronghold. Earlier, on February 27, 65 students from sixth to tenth grades were abducted along with their teacher while returning from Musikot, Rukum (this one a Maoist stronghold) after taking part in the Birendra Shield Competition. The security forces who were deployed to free the students failed in their mission. When the gun battle between the Army...