White Water Rafting
For Tourism Promotion

By Khilendra Basnyat

TOURISM expedites capital flows to a country and helps increase its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Consequently, there is an improvement in the per capita income of the country.

In Nepal, since the 1960s, tourism has been playing a significant role in gaining valuable foreign exchange and in augmenting employment opportunities in the main cities where tourists flock and also in major trekking routes.

At present, in Nepal, tourism contributes about twenty-five per cent of total foreign earnings and four per cent of GDP.

Nepal is a country with more than two hundred peaks whose heights are above twenty thousand feet and is known the world as the country with the highest peak in the world, the birth place of Lord Buddha, the champion of peace. Moreover, Kathmandu valley is known as the living museum of traditional art and architecture.

In fact, there is a great potential for making Nepal a major tourist destination in South Asia. It has the necessary cultural and natural heritage to attract adequate number of tourists. However, the flow of tourists has not matched the projection. This is because such a sector that contributes to the national coffer has not received the attention that it actually deserves.

Despite an increasing trend in tourism development, there has been a sudden setback in this industry since the past few years. There are many reasons for this, of which the non-operation of Indian Airlines flights to Kathmandu for about five months in the beginning of the year 2000 and the inability of the Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation to cater to the demands of air seats due to insufficient aircrafts are worth mentioning.

Political unrest is responsible for low tourist arrival because tourists want to visit a country where they can enjoy themselves.

In the past few years, there were frequent strikes and protest programmes organised by various political parties. This not only disrupted the normal life in the country but also affected the movement of tourists. Negative publicity also made many would be visitors to cancel their plans to visit Nepal.

Today, tourism promotion is a catchphrase in many countries, and Nepal is not an exception in this regard. The visit Nepal Year and other measures aimed at promoting tourism have not been as successful as desired. No doubt, the impact of these programmes, to some extent, is perceivable.

However, there are quite a few areas in tourism which need greater debate to decide whether they are feasible and acceptable.

Nepal can earn a lot of money by providing more outdoor recreations so that even few tourists could contribute more money. Hence, optimum tourism potential has to be exploited by rendering excellent recreation facilities to boost quality tourism which enhance foreign exchange, strengthens the balance of payment and controls the negative impact of uncontrolled mass tourism.

Today, adventure tourism has been gaining wide popularity in many countries. White water rafting which also falls under adventure tourism, has attracted many tourists in the world.

White water rafting, which was initiated by Sir Edmund Hillary in Nepal in 1968 in Sunkoshi river, has now become popular among many tourists coming from different parts of the world. As a result, several rafting agents have been set up in the country for rendering services to tourists.

In Nepal, there are many rivers where white water rafting can be carried out throughout the year. However, till now, white water rafting is carried out only ten months a year.

The rivers permitted for rafting are Arun, Bheri, Karnali, Kaligandaki, Seti, Sunkoshi, Trishuli, Marsyangdi, and Bhotekoshi. Of these, Trishuli and Sunkoshi are mostly used for rafting.

Despite the possibility of rafting in Budigandaki, Rapti and Dudhkoshi, they have not been permitted for rafting by the government as yet.

Till now, only some private agencies have made some publicity about white water rafting in Nepal. However, this is not sufficient. If there is a wide publicity about the above mentioned rivers through different communication media, it goes without saying that there will be a quantum jump in the number of rafters coming to Nepal every year, resulting in more foreign exchange.

The Nepal Association of Rafting Agent (NARA) has been playing an active role in promoting white water rafting in Nepal.

NARA has already participated in an international level rafting competition. It is aimed at participating in more such competitions in the coming years in order to popularise our white water rafting in other countries.

Since the past few years NARA has been carrying out a variety of rafting related activities. In this context, it produces rafting guides, cleans rivers, demonstrates rafting shows for promoting domestic tourism and prepares the code of conduct relating to white water rafting. It also makes world-wide publicity about white water rafting in Nepal.

It has also requested the government for permitting rafting in more probable rivers in future.

Presently, many foreign entrepreneurs have earned a lot of money involving themselves in white water rafting business in Nepal. NARA has raised voice against it in order to encourage indigenous entrepreneurs engaged in white water rafting and to inhibit capital outflow. However, the government has turned deaf ears to this fact.

In fact, the government should take a positive attitude towards the request put forth by tourism entrepreneurs who are directly responsible for the development of tourism. However, tourism entrepreneurs should understand that pressing a long list of things to do will not help flourish our tourism industry.

The government has already declared the year 2002 the destination Nepal year. White water rafting, if publicised and developed well, will help fulfil the goal of attracting one million tourists during the above stated year. For this both the governmental and non-governmental sectors should work in concert.

On Writing In English

By Khem Aryal

GIVING expression to any thought and emotion involves the use of a medium. Literature obviously involves the use of the verbal medium of language. For a few years there has been a continuous talk among writers of Nepal concerning the use of language in writing literature, to be specific, whether Nepali language is enough or English should be promoted. Some writers and intellectuals traditionally taught in Nepali and Sanskrit hold the strong opinion that writing only in Nepali could serve the purpose. They even opine that following another language like English means falling under the shadow of the colonial past, even if we did never come under colonial powers. On the other hand, continuous teaching and learning of English language and literature in Nepal for about fifty years has produced a big circle that has already developed a taste for it along with Nepali language and literature. Through English language this circle has got access to world literature. It does not necessarily need to be English literature or American literature but literature produced in any corner of the world, that has been written in English or been translated into English. And this taste has further instigated these writers to write in this language. And those who feel that nationalism can be promoted by writing only in Nepali language have taken this attempt with a pinch of salt.

Writing in the mother tongue could be the safest way to express one’s ideas and feelings. But it does not necessarily mean that one can always express oneself correctly in it and fails in the other languages learnt later. There might be various reasons for a writer’s choice of a certain language. A basic motive behind writing in English in Nepal is possibly to reach to a larger audience. No writer in the present global context wants to remain within a limited circle of readers. So every writer writing in Nepali wants his/her books to get translated into English. If this is the case, there is no harm in trying one’s hand in writing originally in English if one has enough control over the language. Mahakavi Devkota himself, with whom the tradition of writing in English started, had said, when asked why he tried his hand in English, he wanted to experiment with a language that he had learnt later. And that experiment turned out to be a mature expression. Many writers by now have already taken English, along with Nepali, as a medium of their expression.

Poet L D Rajbhandari, who has six books to her credit in English by now, could be an example of it. And writers like Mani Dixit, Padma Prasad Devkota to D B Gurung have not hurt our national sentiments by writing in English. Rather they have set further steps to take Nepali literary creation to a height, and show the presence of Nepal in the international forum.

A literary piece originally written in English is bound to be better than the translated version of the same piece written in Nepali, if the translation is usually made by a non-native speaker of English. And if a translated piece of writing can talk about Nepali experience, there is no rationale behind discoura-ging original writing in English. That we do not accept Nepali creative writing in English and still expect our books to get translated into English shows our disi-llusionment. If a Nepali writer can translate, he can create even better. But it does not mean that we do not have to write in Nepali. We should do so. But writing in English will obviously take the national experience to international audience. Writing in English does not in any way mean that one has abused Nepali language and hurt Nepali nationalism. After all that will be a Nepali creation, coming out of the Nepalese soil. It is not very different from writing in other local languages of Nepal like Tharu, Dhimal, Awadhi, Limbu or the like, but with a greater reach.

Moreover, at the Central Department of English, Tribhuvan University, under Area Studies there are South Asian Studies and Non Western Studies. But no literary pieces, whether originally written in English or translated into English from Nepali texts, have been included in the syllabus, except Mahakavi Devakota’s Shakuntal. It indicates a dire need to create worth reading literary pieces in English that could be included in our own syllabus as well as in the syllabuses of foreign universities. If we could take the challenges in time, the Nepali soil could give birth to, not one but numerous, blue mimosas. When it is done writing literary pieces won’t be simply for self-satis-faction, but for taking our national heritage to interna-tional forum through literature which will certainly be a lot for national identity.

To conclude, the question is how to create the literary pieces that can transpire across the border and show their presence in the world. Writing in English will enable a writer more to be exposed to a larger audience that will impose more challenges, and more possibilities as well, to create better pieces, and there he/she will not have to wait for a translator to share his/her experiences.