THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

GOODWILL HUNTING Sushma Joshi On January 23, 2004, dozens of students were imprisoned in Janakpurdham for their activism against regression. Janakpur, viewed by local inhabitants with pride as one of the first gadatantra in history - its democratic politics is written about in the epic Ramayana, claim local scholars - is a place where students would rebel against a repressive system. But local inhabitants had another related event to mark on the same day - January 23th was also the third death anniversary of Gajendra Narayan Singh, the charismatic leader and founder of the Sadhbhawana Party. The Sadhbhawana Party represents the broad swath of the Terai belt, and raises issues of citizenship, language, culture and decentralized government-central to the concerns of the madesh's inhabitants-on a national level. The current Constitution discriminates against the Terai people in many ways, say political leaders. Sadhbhawana's platform is based on redressing these discriminatory s...

Sushma Joshi The Nation Weekly Magazine, 2004 Through one of the many winding lanes leading off the main shrine of Boudha, Kathmandu, you can walk past craftsmen hammering delicate silver jewelry, past workshops which manufacture wooden casks, past a dump-heap where an old woman scavenges for recyclables, and into a large and spacious monastery. This is the Shechen Monastery, one of the many monasteries that dot the land around the main shrine. But Shechen, which is based on the Ningmapa tradition, has something a little different to offer. This warm February morning, a scattered line of animated foreigners carrying scrolls in their hands exit out of the building. As we climb up the stairs, we see photographs of thangkas framed and exhibited on the walls. On the second floor, monks rush about carrying trays full of tarts adorned with fresh fruits while people carrying diplomas get their photographs taken. At the threshold, we meet Monk Matthew, a Tibetan Buddhist monk originally ...

Sushma Joshi, February 2004 Photographer Gill Goucher’s exhibition brochure of the Khampas starts with a photograph of a nomad with a wry smile, holding a baby who pops out of a pouch inside his half-open woolen jacket. The baby, wrapped in sheepskin, looks less like a kangaroo and more like a wide-eyed alien. Goucher is from Australia, and that down-under sense of humor pops up more than once in the portraits of nomads with a very contemporary sense of style. Keith Gardner, the Australian Ambassador to Nepal, who opened Goucher’s exhibition in Kathmandu, followed up the theme of the alien by remarking, “Khampas look like people from out of this world.” He went on to talk about their elaborate hair-dos and love of jewelry (could the Khampa ambassador, if such a personage were to exist, have used the same words for an exhibit of photography about Australians?: “These warm, humble people have a great love of tattoos and eye-brow rings, which they love to show off along with their mozzy b...