THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

By Sushma Joshi A charming little vegetable bazaar sets up at evening at the public plaza near my home. Candles twinkle in the dusk, temple bells rings, and clusters of children gather as the vendors set up piles of colourful vegetables and fruits for sale. One of the vendors has claimed me for his own, and insists I buy watermelons and mangoes even on days when I don't need them. To humour him, I oblige. I found out, however, the last few days, the prices get crazier. One day it's Rs.60 for mangoes. The next day is Rs.85. The day after it was Rs.110. Then Rs. 170. I feel guilty as I pick up my plastic bag with the mangoes. Other customers clustering around me give a baffled look of surprise when quoted the going price, then walk off in disappointment. This wild seesaw of prices (an almost unheard of swing of 40% within one day) is just the tip of the economic iceberg that is sinking Nepal's Titanic attempts to rebuild the country. With no regulatory mechanisms to keep pr...

Sushma Joshi Kathmandu Post, 2009-07-19 During the Jana Andolan time, we heard a lot about “regression.” Regression, as far as I understood, stood for “going back to a darker time and place.” With the establishment of the republic and the Constituent Assembly (CA), we haven't heard that word with such frequency. Admittedly, the peace process still has to come to a “logical end” through the fabled use of “civilian supremacy” but the more we head towards the second year of the CA, the more it appears that the end is far from logical and the civilians, instead of reigning supreme, are now suffering from having a carpet they never knew they had — a regressive carpet of feudal but still functioning bureaucracy — whisked out from under them. They are on the floor and bawling, but who's there to hear? For instance, the fabled feudal bureaucracy of the Panchayat actually had gotten it together to do that most basic of therapies — oral rehydration therapy for those suffering from diarrh...

Sushma Joshi With the rising population, many communities in Nepal are on the edge of a major drinking water crisis The Kathmandu Post, 2009 “Do you know who the current Prime Minister is?” we ask. The people of the Chidimar village eye the team of journalists scornfully and reply: “We don't know. Last time we checked it was Girija. Maybe now it's Fatteh Singh Tharu.” They are being facetious. News media is too widespread these days for people not to know who is currently prime minister. But their answer, given with the shrug of indifference, underlies how the majority of Nepal's people feel very removed from the daily activities of the tiny handful who purport to rule the country. The majority of Nepal's 26 millions have more important matters to think about. For instance, food and water. For a Chidimar community who live close to Nepalgunj, their main concern is water security. A project came in and installed 6 hand-pumps for 18 households. Now, only two work...

Sushma Joshi “Is there any other person whose death would evoke the same global response in this century?” wondered a well known journalism professor in his Twitter posting. The answer seems to be no. Michael Jackson, love child of the American Eighties and its fantabulous excesses, is probably going to be it. My mother's still convinced he died of cancer. When I asked her, “Do you know this singer called Michael Jackson?” she was irritated. “Yes,” she said, then burst out: “Why did that nice black man have to go and turn himself white? All those chemicals! His skin turned white, his nose fell off, and then he died of cancer.” I said he couldn't sleep for four days before his death, and he'd asked for strong sleep medication, and that he'd been found the day of his death on the floor with his stomach full of prescription drugs and he probably died of overmedication. My mother was adamant. “I saw it on TV. He died of cancer.” (I have my own theory. Apparently Michael cal...

Sushma Joshi “Subsidized food turning Mugu fields barren.” This rather astonishing news was reported by the Kathmandu Post on June 15. The article quoted District Agricultural Officials who stated that Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) and World Food Programme (WFP) rice had increased dependency, and that people have lost interest in cultivating their land in favor of standing in line all day to get a 10 kg rice ration. According to one official, subsidized rice rations made people so dependent they've stopped growing crops. Of course, one cannot really understand the situation without visiting the district. I have yet to visit Mugu. But what I found in my trip from Nepalgunj to Surkhet to Humla is that the worst drought in 40 years -- four months without rain from December to March —has been followed by a delayed monsoon, which was supposed to start on June 15. This has affected food crops on a massive level. The rice seedlings which some farmers chose to sprout have dried. For t...