Indomitable spirit to atop Mt. Everest

-BY A STAFF REPORTER

Kathmandu, Jan. 15:Looks can be deceptive. Slender body and long straight hair. At 26, shy and reserved Lakpa Sherpa looks just an ordinary lass from Kathmandu. But the lady is out to challenge the highest point on earth in the coming spring. She is leading Nepalese Women Millennium Everest Expedition 2000, which was formally launched today.

Snow and mountains were always "friends" to Lakpa. Born and brought up in Sankhuwasabha, she comes from a family of mountaineers; her elder brother Chhiring Sherpa is a four time Mt. Sagarmatha (Everest) summiteer and her two cousins were perished in the Himalayas in two different accidents.

"When my brother firstly scaled the Sagarmatha’s height. I knew I wanted to do that too." Lakpa was only 11 at that time. She has already climbed other mountains of above 6000 meters. How does she feel on a mountaintop? "I feel I was destined to be there. I want to be there for ever. Every time I climb down the peak I feel like crying because my desire is to go up and up and never to come down," Lakpa said with a shy smile.

In a formal launching programme of the expedition today the four-member women team was expressed wishes that their dream be materialised. Nepali Congress President Girija Prasad Koiral and CPN-UML leader Bharat Mohan Adhikari delivered their party’s good wishes and pledged all the support possible from their side.

Assistant Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Narayan Singh Pun granting a financial support of two and half lakh from his personal purse pledged "full support" from his ministry. However, he did not elaborate the kind of support the ministry will extend.

Mingma Yangzi Sherpa, deputy expedition leader, is all determined to realise her dream. A divorcee and mother of two teenagers, she wants to make an international name for herself. "My 13-year old daughter got upset with the fear that after loosing her father she might loose me as well in the mountains. But now she is convinced that her mommy will come back victorious," she said as if she was promising that to her child.

For Mingma the expedition is a mission to prove the world that Nepalese women are as daring as their brothers and through her success she wants to restore the confidence of Nepalese women on mountaineering that was badly jolted by death of Pasang Lhamu Sherpa. Pasang became the first Nepalese women to scale the world’s highest mountain five years back and died on her descend down.

"Pasang had promised to meet me after her successful climb, but her fate failed her. I want to pay homage to her spirit by climbing the mountain," said the 33-year old entrepreneur.

The other members of the Nepalese Women Millennium Everest Expedition that is scheduled to start the climb on first week of April this year are Dawa Yangzi Sherpa and Dolma Sherpa. The expedition is organised by Sushma Koirala Trust and managed by Asian Trekking. The Trust President Sujata Koirala expressed her confidence of the team’s success.

Since its first assault in May 1953 by Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and Sir Edmund Hillary, 874 individuals have already scaled Mt. Sagarmatha. Out of the total 82 successful climbers are women.

Hits’ Music Awards: Dhakal makes hat-trick

-BY ARHAN STHAPIT

Kathmandu, Jan 15:A spell of eerie silence fell over the audience in anticipation as two smartly dressed young anchors took the centre stage in a rather dramatic fashion to kick off the Hits FM Music Awards-2056 here Saturday evening at Birendra International Convention Hall.

An audience of well over a thousand—with their fingers crossed—held their breath each time winners were declared in 12 different categories of the Hits FM Music Awards, which is often labelled as Nepali equivalent to the Grammy Awards.

In its third year now, the annual musical contest in Nepal Hits FM Music Awards is organised every year by Hits Nepal Pvt. Ltd., a firm running an FM channel on the Radio Nepal FM Kathmandu station. This year there were 11 different categories having five contestants each on the fray. That apart, the musical mega show also had a non-competition-based category, namely, Life Achievement Award that was bestowed this year to veteran female singer and composer Koilee Devi Mathema.

Among the competition based categories, the first ever announced award of the evening was of the category ‘Best New Artiste of the Year’ that went to Rajan ‘Ishan’ for his smashing hit Bashama Chhaina.

It was Ram Krishna Dhakal who literally stole the show. With his record smashing album Asha and a super-hit number Orali Lageko, he made it a hatrick by making a clean sweep of the prestigious awards in the three different categories: Record of the Year, Album of the Year and Best Male Vocal Performance of the Year. Being crowned as the best male vocal performer he also stopped talented Navin K. Bhattarai from making it a hatrick to the straight third consecutive year of the competition.

Apart from that, it was again Dhakal who was the singer of Manparaune Hazar that won the Song of the Year Award for its lyrics. In this category introduced only this year in the contest, veteran lyricist Kali P. Rijal was awarded.

One of the strongest award aspirants of the competition Navin K. Bhattarai (Dobatoma) had to share the award with Deepak Bajracharya (Samaya) in one of the most closely contested categories of the evening: it was in the category of the Best Pop Vocal Performance: Male.

It is for the first time in the history of Hits FM Music Awards that two artistes were awarded jointly in any one category. It was also the newly introduced category.

Other new categories added to the competition this year were that of the Best Vocal Collaboration and the Best Pop Vocal Performance: Female, the awards for which went to Uday & Manila Sotang (Maya Namara) and Reema Gurung (Launa Ni) respectively.

Ace female singer Kunti Moktan, who was nominated in three different categories including two songs in one single category, finally emerged triumphant in the broad Best Female Vocal Performance category.

Music composer Nhyoo Bajracharya smiled her way to bag the award of the Best Song Originally Recorded for a Motion Picture Soundtrack for Lagideu of the film Desh Paradesh, while another highly rated band of the evening 1974AD (Samjhi Baschhu) also scored a success to capture the award for the Best Performance by a Group or Duo with Vocal.

As the long-echoing applause of the audience simmered down, the winners were announced and given away the awards by Nepal’s famous artistes including the Golden Voice of Nepal Premdhoj Pradhan, Meera Rana, Kumar Basnet, Shila Bahadur Moktan, Prakash Shrestha, Umesh Pandey, Lochan Bhattarai, and Harish Mathema as well as other celebrities Kshetra Pratap Adhikari, Yadav Kharel, Gopal Raj Mainali and Michael Chand.

Going by the history of the Hits FM Music Awards, no old face among the winners of the different categories appeared this year except for one Navin K. Bhattarai, who had won two awards and one award in the first and second Annual Hits FM100 Music Awards respectively of the Bikram Year 2054 and 2055.

Those who performed in the spectacular musical programme included 1974AD band, Rajan ‘Ishan’, Uday Sotang-Manila Sotang, Saroj Dutta, Navin K. Bhattarai, Haribansha Acharya, Reema Gurung, Anand Karki, Ramkrishna Dhakal and Deepak Bajracharya who were nominated in one or more categories of the competition.

The nominations in each category, the sources at Hits Nepal Pvt. Ltd said, were made on the basis of the nomination forms filled in by general listeners and collected from different parts of the Kingdom.

Be innovative, Chaudhari tells Jaycees

Bhaktapur, Jan. 15 (RSS):A joint installation of newly elected office bearers of Bhaktapur Jaycees, women jaycees and junior jaycees for 2000 concluded yesterday in the presence of Minister of State for Science and Technology Surendra Prasad Chaudhari.

The outgoing presidents Kishor Rajbhandari of Bhaktapur Jaycees, Basundhara Dhaubanjar of women jaycees and Mrigendra Munakarmi of junior jaycees for 1999 handed over their chairmanships to Balkrishna Sharma, Ratimaiya Ulaka and Deependra Kharbuja respectively.

On the occasion, Minister of State Chaudhari said that Nepal Jaycees have to introduce innovative programmes for the development of any particular field.

He also underlined the need for other social institutions to follow group discussion as practised by Jaycees in the past.

He also presented the "Competent project coordinator Suwal Award" established by ex-president and senator Balmukunda Suwal to executive vice president of Bhaktapur Women Jaycees Shila Saiju.

Ex-executive vice president of Nepal Jaycees Nabin Kayastha chaired the function at which vice president of Nepal Jaycees K.P. Awale threw light on the activities of the Jaycees.