THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

Hamilton’s understanding and curiosity of the people and cultures makes him the one of the first proto-anthropologists to enter the country and take stock—literally—of Nepal BY SUSHMA JOSHI There is a reason why the English ruled over an empire where the sun never set. The English colonists knew the value of knowledge. Take “An Account of the Kingdom of Nepal, and of the Territories Annexed to this Dominion by the House of Gorkha,” written by Francis Buchanan Hamilton and published in 1819. Written by a man who spent only 14 months in Kathmandu, between 1802 and 1803, and two more years on the frontier, it is an extensive documentation of everything from the genealogies of the rajas of small principalities of Nepal to listings of natural resources, from the minutest details of how metal was subdivided between different parties to the exact decimal point of grain measurements. Classifications of medicinal herbs, trees, animals, birds and ethnic groups ...

December 15 2004, Nation Weekly Magazine Sushma Joshi Morang District Court is crowded at 3pm on a Friday afternoon. Police with guns take a breather in the open air as they escort detainees into the courtroom. Upstairs, a tiny woman braves the all-male crowd and rushes in breathlessly as a hearing is just about to start in the civil bench. She sits down and covers her head with her sari’s pallu. This is Alkadevi Shah (38). She is here to find out if she will finally get property from her estranged husband. A complicated case involving two lawsuits are about to be heard. Judge Mahesh Prasad Pudasaini reads his “misil” as the lawyers arrive. Advocate Ram Lal Sutihar, of Nepal Bar Association, Morang, addresses the judge. “Sriman,” he says. “My client is a victim of domestic violence. She was thrown out of her house. A woman has a right to maintenance. My client is entitled to her husband’s property. But her husband has taken an imaginary loan from another man, and put a counter lawsuit ...

So many goods, but noone to buy it : A typical Bandh day.

The state of conflict has become, for the nation, a state of mind Nation Weekly Magazine, 2004 BY SUSHMA JOSHI IN NEPALGUNJ Nepalgunj has palm trees. It has good sekuwa, thought to be perfected with MSG. It has a “New Road” that is being constructed; massive concrete buildings going up within the space of a few years, occupied by people fleeing the conflict in the mid- and far-western districts. It has mosques with elaborate minarets next to gurudwaras and temples. It has businesses, from law firms to tire stores, named after Bageshwori, the patron goddess. It has a list of ethnic groups, not all of whom drink water from the homes of other groups. It has Abadi speakers and Urdu speakers. It has a pluralistic, multi-lingual, vibrant border culture that does not, by any stretch of the imagination, fit the confines of Nepal’s limited Constitution. For a city that is so close and yet so excluded from the presently limited imaginings of the Nepali nation, Nepalgunj has a special fondn...

Shooting Karma Tsering Rhitar is a perfectionist who works his scenes meticulously, getting take after take until he’s ready to move to the next scene BY SUSHMA JOSHI Tsering Rhitar stands by the reception area in the Sherpa Hotel, directing his film. The film, titled “Karma,” is a story about a nun who walks down from Mustang to Pokhara to Kathmandu to track down a man who owes money to the monastery. The nuns need the money to do a puja. The film, says Rhitar, is about the paradox of the co-existence of materialism and spirituality. “Use your own language,” Rhitar urges his actor. The director is wearing a brightly colored Nepali topi as he directs his multinational crew his cameraman Ranjan Pallit is from India, his actors are Nepali, and he himself has a partial Tibetan background. His shooting script is written in English, with scribbled notes in Tibetan. Little storyboards have been drawn in stick figures next to the script. The dialogue is being translated from the on...

INTERNALLY DISPLACED A major attack in the district headquarters often precipitates a sudden exodus, but the trickle of people leaving a way of life has become commonplace BY SUSHMA JOSHI in Kohalpur, Banke The tears are still fresh for Bachu Rokaya. She fled Mugu three months ago after her husband was killed by the Maoists. He was held in detention for four months and then killed. They tied his feet and hands and threw him into the Karnali, says a fellow villager who also fled down to Nepalgunj. Villagers suspect the man was taken because he was a state employee working for the government’s post office system and was also active in his community. Bachu says: “I have nobody here, nobody.” Although there are nine other families from Shera VDC, her parents’ home, Bachu has to survive by herself in these temporary shelters. With two sons and four daughters to take care of and no source of income, her desperation is all too real. Gayarudra Buda has a different story. The 39-yea...