THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

Sushma Joshi JUL 24, 2010 - The Kathmandu Post São Paolo is the third largest city in the world—after Mexico City and Bombay, according to some commentators. São Paolo is also the city with the largest population of Japanese outside Japan. Immigrants usually come from poorer countries, in my experience. Urban metropolis from New York to London have neighbourhoods named Chinatown and little Italy and little India—countries where large number of residents faced poverty and fled to a better land. So it was a surprise to see a neighborhood of immigrants composed of people normally considered wealthy and privileged—in this case, the Japanese. Liberdade, a neighborhood in central São Paolo, hums with the Sunday fair common to Brazilian cities—except these stalls are full of paper origami, t-shirts with kanji calligraphy, red banners with Katakana and Portuguese signs. The stalls are manned by elderly Japanese, who sell their wares in jerky Portuguese. Stalls sell a sizzling yakiss...

SUSHMA JOSHI, Kathmandu Post, 18 July 2010 A young Nepali friend of mine, who spends most of his time in a rather charming coffee shop and who seems to mysteriously make lots of money in “marketing consulting” gigs that he gets through referrals and the Internet, told me recently that the time had come to outsource Nepal’s government to the experts. I laughed. I said: “Outsource the government? But you can’t do that!” “Why not?” he said, deadly serious. “We’ve tried with the monarchy. We’ve tried with the democrats. We’ve tried with Maoists. We gave them all a fair shot. They all failed. Now its time to bring in the experts.” All we needed, he said, is about 50 of Asia’s top leaders and managers who’ve put other countries on track. Water system falling apart? Let’s bring in Singapore’s water managers. Airline falling apart? Let’s bring in Thailand’s airline managers. “Nepal Rastra Bank,” he says, “loses millions of rupees each year from a few rupees being taken here and there by employ...

Kathmandu Post, Sunday, 2010/07/04 Every morning, on my way to work, I pass the Bishnumati river. From the turnoff from Kalimati, I can already smell the powerful stench of rotting offals from the wounded body of the water body. Like a dying snake it lies, surrounded by the filth of a city intent on smothering it with sewage. The water is dark black, like ink. Every day, I walk past that fetid stink. I can sense the entrails of buffaloes, the timbre of industrial chemicals, the fluffiness of dumped ice cream cones. Each time I decide to walk back from work, I curse myself for having forgotten, once again, what lies in wait for me. I hurry past, trying to hold my breath, but there is no escaping the causality of what my human actions have already done to this river. We have disrespected this life-giving force by covering it up with our shit. Astounding ignorance makes us use the artery of the city as a dumping site. This disrespect for nature, surely, will one day rear its head to strik...