THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

SUSHMA JOSHI When Basanta Thapa of the Himal Association called me up and asked me if I’d like to be one of the jury members of the UK Nepal Climate Change Competition, it sounded easy. “We’ve received three films,” he said. “About seven have registered to send more.” We estimated at the most about two dozen films, each three minutes long, that we’d watch in one sitting. When I rushed in at 9:15am at the judging venue, and said: “I hear we now have 70 submissions!”, Basanta Dai said to me: “Its now 124!” The numbers were incredible, if only because a few years ago one could count the number of filmmakers on the fingers of two hands. As we sat down to watch the first film, I got a tingle in my scalp from the excitement. There were 124 filmmakers in Nepal who were not just interested in climate change issues but who had actually gotten it together to submit films? This, indeed, ws good news for Nepal. This explosion of filmmaking had come not just from access to cheap technology but al...

Sushma Joshi 09/8/14 I became a hippie by mistake. A few days before my 19th birthday, a man approached me in the co-operative house where I used to live in Providence, Rhode Island, and asked: “Would you like to follow the Grateful Dead?” “Yes!” I answered, having not the slightest clue what or who the Grateful Dead were. “Do you know what you’re getting into?” My friend Naomi, who was accompanying me on this venture, asked me. “No,” I said. “But my brother used to listen to the Grateful Dead. They have covers with skulls holding roses between their teeth.” And that was the way I ended up wounding my way across the U.S. in a rattling Volkswagen van, cutting a straight path from Ohio to Kentucky to Illinois to Berkeley to Eugene, Oregon in a gypsy caravan with four hippies, singing and dancing along with one of the most alternative bands on the planet. Never mind that by this time (this was 1992), the Grateful Dead were more mainstream than Bon Jovi. Who cared about their record ...

Sushma Joshi Kathmandu Post, 2009/07/31 Long before it became fashionable in Kathmandu to discuss ways to eradicate caste, class and ethnic boundaries and discrimination, there was one Nepali space where this was already taking place. The hill station of Darjeeling, where the British went to cool off, has retained an institutional legacy of colonialism that even the staunchest post-colonialist would have a hard time criticising. This legacy comes in the form of British-style boarding schools which teach children not just the time-honoured stiff upper lip regarding hardships, but also an absolute levelling of all social hierarchies. These schools have literally transformed thousands upon thousands of Nepali students into intelligent, efficient and law-abiding citizens. Ever wondered why some institutions in Nepal function so well, despite the crazy culture of malingering and corruption? The secret is probably a Darjeeling (or “Darj” for short) alum. I’d guarantee there’s a high likeliho...

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...