Dialpad.com and the possibilities of unlimited guff

-Mark Turin

Yesterday, we went to Thamel to phone America. As we walked past the old Central Immigration Office I realised quite how much and how fast Kathmandu has changed. There is, of course, a touch of happy irony in the fact that the old Immigration building now houses a shiny and glittering Grindlays Bank office. Although the Immigration Office’s shift to Baneshwor has made many a Kathmandu cab driver all the wealthier, I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps the office should have stayed where it was, on the edge of Thamel. What with the new visa regulations and charges ($50 USD per month), I am quite sure that Immigration would be coining more money than Grindlays.

In no time we were at our trusted STD shop. It is worth pointing out, to the newly arrived non-Asian visitor to Nepal, that STD shops are not roadside clinics where people can be cured of their Sexually Transmitted Diseases, but telecommunication centres in which the abbreviation stands for Subscriber’s Trunk Call. As we strolled in, I had a flash back to making my first ever international phone call from Nepal, about nine years ago. I had walked all the way down to the Central Telegraph Office at the bottom of Kanti Path, opposite the National Stadium. There, I had placed an order for a 3 minute phone call which was connected by a smiling operator. It couldn’t be any more removed from the little communications kiosk we were in now, with photocopiers, computers and faxes all whirring away.

We had come to try out Dialpad.com, this free internet-based phone service to America. We had heard about it from a friend from Upper Mustang, a part of Nepal with no roads let alone phones. His brother was working in McDonalds in New York city and he had come all the way to Kathmandu just to speak to him. In Thamel, he had been told, it was possible to phone America for free by speaking through a computer. We had made a mental note to find out about this miraculous phone service when back in town.

In the STD shop, the owner carefully explained the situation to us. Although there would be no international phone charge, it would cost us Nrs. 10 per minute, a small service charge as otherwise he would make no money on it whatsoever. Before he connected us to the headphone set, he just wanted to check that the line quality was good, so he dialled his niece in America. He phoned America just to check that the line was good enough! It took me a minute or two to recover from the shock. When I came to, he was already talking. “E Priya, khana khayau? Tero bhai aeko cha ki chaina?” (Hey Priya, have you eaten already? Has your younger brother come home or not?) he asked, talking with her as if she were in Kalimati and not Kaliphornia. Having established that all was well on the West Coast, he got off the phone and smiled, “the line is excellent” he said, “…and my nephew has not yet come home from work” he added, more as an afterthought.

The implications for Nepal of this incredibly cheap (in fact, almost free) telephonic contact with America should not be underestimated. The wonderful thing about innovative technologies in general, and specifically the internet in this case, is that they open up previously untapped modes of communication. The speed with which educated Nepalis have embraced the possibilities offered by email and internet-related technology never fails to impress me. I have a number of Nepali friends who have used email without ever having sent a fax or received a telex. Although (or perhaps even because) the technological innovation always seems to come from outside, Nepal can bypass all the intermediate stages which have hampered the spread of new computer technology in the West. The middle-aged middle-classes in Europe, for example, are noticeably resistant to using email and surfing the Net. “Why should we now get email?” they ask, “only five years ago we got a fax because everyone told us that we couldn’t live without one!” This is precisely the problem with technologically advanced countries. Since they have been at the forefront of technological change, their populations have been the willing (and sometimes not so willing) guinea pigs for a range of dead-end technologies, like BetaMax video tapes to mention but one. How many old and unused 286 desktop computers are collecting dust in attics in Nepal? Well, not half as many as there are in England, I can assure you. It seems to me that computers arrived in Nepal at just the right time in their development, at a stage when they really are both user-friendly and useful.

But briefly back to Dialpad.com: a simple technological step which is saving Nepalis with relatives in the United States thousands of rupees in phone calls. No one knows quite how long it will last, and Internet Service Providers here in Nepal as well as the telecommunications company are getting rightly nervous about the implications of near-free phone calls. But one thing is clear: for the moment you can talk to your friends and family in America for a just a couple of rupees a minute. Perhaps the only people we should pity in this otherwise positive development are the young Nepali men and women studying in the States whose mothers will now be phoning every day to remind them to wear warm clothes and to tell them to eat more!

To eat or not to eat

Srijana Ranjit

Food, according to Oxford Dictionary definition, is “any substance that people or animals eat or drink or plants take in to maintain life and growth.”   Food and life have always been complementary to each other. Search for food has been the prime activity for every living organism from the microscopic protozoa to highest form of life. The evolutionary process has diverged from the point of search of food for survival to various aspects of development.

Food is mainly divided into macronutrients and micronutrients. Macronutrients include carbohydrates, proteins and fats all of which make up the bulk of the diet.  Micronutrients include vitamins and minerals, which are present in fewer amounts in diet, but nevertheless bear a great importance for maintenance of good health.

Presently, people are being more health conscious than they used to be, subsequently more diet conscious. In addition, there is a wide variety of food we can choose.  However, the question is whether our diet contains the important items we need.  As the saying goes: every coin has two faces, every food has two aspects — both good and bad. The main point is to have the amount of food just enough to get its advantage and avoid the disadvantage.

The balanced diet is the one that includes a wide variety of food.  It has to be combined in such a way that it has 50% carbohydrate, 30% protein and 20% fats along with the micronutrients. This diet has to suffice the calories required to carry out the vital functions of the body e.g. respiration, to maintain and repair the body, to carry out the daily activity and a little extra for storage in case of leanness. The diet varies according to the place, crops grown, food produced, culture, tradition, religion, tastes and habits of people. Whatever the condition is, the diet should be balanced to safeguard the population from nutritional deficiencies.

Food and diet play direct or indirect role in the health status.  There have been established links between diet and diseases such as hypertension, megaloblastic anemia, night blindness, cretinism, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes e.t.c. and to some extent also cancer.

In the modern fast moving life of competition and demands, hypertension is probably the most prevalent disease. Everyone, even the person living next door, your relative or colleague complains of having high blood pressure. Why? The reason is multifactorial. But there is increasing evidence of linkage between high salt intake (i.e. 7-8 gm per day) and increase in blood pressure. The other risk factors of hypertension are obesity, saturated fat, alcohol and hereditary preponderance. Perhaps, the most notable factor of hypertension is stress and tension. A tension or stress free person has become a rare species in today’s modern life. Next time, when you get your blood pressure checked up, take time to remember what you have been eating, and ask yourself whether you have been stressing yourself too much.  But there are also cases of hypertension that are said to be idiopathic i.e. for which no reason has yet been found. There is also malignant hypertension that takes a short course to death. Perhaps food has no role in it.

People used to think that heart disease is the disease of rich people. But, the incidence of cardiovascular diseases is increasing in Nepal.

Diet influences the development of heart diseases especially coronary heart disease (CHD). The WHO expert committee (1982) concludes that there is a triangular relationship between habitual diet, blood cholesterol levels and CHD.

The body also synthesizes some amount of cholesterol. The cholesterol in the body is carried in the body in the form of chylomicrons, very low-density lipoproteins (VLDL), low-density lipoproteins (LDLs) and high-density lipoproteins (HDLs). HDLs remove cholesterol from the cells and thus are protective in CHD. On the other hand, LDLs are involved in atherosclerotic process, a process in which the lipids accumulate on the plaques present on the walls of blood vessels. Platelets, the cells responsible for coagulation of blood, get attached to these plaques and form a clot, medically called thrombus, inside the blood vessel. The thrombus occludes the blood flow and gives the harmful effect. When it occurs in the vessels supplying the heart, the patient gets heart attack. The thrombus may fragment and flow along the blood. It is called embolus. When the embolus reaches the brain blood vessels and occludes the vessel, the patient gets stroke. These are the prime effects that are seen in the present context. It should be remembered that it could affect any organ of the body.

Estrogen, a hormone present in female, increases the levels of HDLs. Thus, females are generally protected against the CHD. When your LDLs are high, watch out, you are heading for trouble. Stop and think what and how you eat. Dietary unsaturated oils have been shown to lower plasma cholesterol. Polyunsaturated oils in addition inhibit platelet aggregation and can save you from a deadly thrombus.

There are also evidences of genetic differences in handling of lipids in the body. Don’t be surprised when one develops CHD and other doesn’t even when they take similar diets. Among all these scaring effects of food, here comes the good aspect.  CHD rates are lowest in people eating high carbohydrate diets. When you eat vegetables, remember your blood cholesterol is decreasing. It has also been observed the inverse relationship between fiber in-take present in vegetables with the risk of CHD.  And of course, watch your body weight. Obesity instead of representing your status of  “Better off people” leads to problems. Over nutrition, hyper-energy food intake and sedentary life style not only increase your waistline but also increases the risk of diabetes, hypertension and CHD.

Whenever you hear of diabetes mellitus, the first thing that comes to your mind is overeating. Diabetes occurs because you have loaded yourself with so much glucose that your cells producing insulin that maintains the blood glucose are exhausted. Blood glucose keeps on increasing and passes out in urine. Excessive ingestion of alcohol increases the risk of diabetes by damaging liver and pancreas and giving way to obesity. Diabetes is hereditary. So, if you have someone with diabetes in your family, be extra cautious about the amount of glucose you are taking in. If your doctor tells you that you have diabetes, don’t panic. The early stages can be managed with diet control and exercise.

It has to be noted that food is not the only culprit in every case of diabetes.  There are number of other causes that can damage your insulin producing cells such as some of the infections and some of the drugs. The diabetes that occurs due to faulty eating habit is called non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus and occurs usually late in life and in obese people. The diabetes that occurs early even in children and those lean and thin is insulin dependent diabetes. In this case, we can’t blame the food we eat. It occurs due to autoimmunity in which the body’s antibodies destroy the cell.

The thought of cancer is scary to everyone, not to mention those who are suffering from it. When we are eating, how many times do we think whether we are eating something that can induce cancerous growth in our body? The answer is probably zero.

But the food additives, preservatives, artificial colors, artificial sweeteners, anti-oxidants and flavours, all of which we usually eat are possibly carcinogen in their long-term effects. Exposure to high temperature, oxidation, polymerization, production of nitrosamines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons etc., which are involved in food processing, are injurious to health. Some of the food have been associated with cancer e.g. nitrosamines with certain types of gastric carcinoma. It is well known that smoking leads to lung cancer and alcohol intake leads to cirrhosis. It has been suggested that beer consumption may lead to cancer rectum.  Betel nut and the like have been associated with cancer of mouth and throat.

Food is the basic necessity of life.  But we eat to live, not live to eat. Thus, our diet has to be planned according to our need for a healthy life, neither less nor excess. We should ask ourselves: “Are we eating the right food at the right time?”  Otherwise, as K. Park says

 “What people eat is not calories but food, and consideration of fads, flavours and variations of appetite can make nonsense of the dietician’s theories.” If you care about yourself, start taking care of what you eat.

Marriage with Wood Apple

-Asha Karki

In a country like ours, most of the plants are used either for their day to day life use or as fuelwood and fodder for their livestock and domestic use. Not only do most of the plants have significant medicinal value, they also have religious importance.

Among these, bel is one of them which in Sanskrit is also known as bilvia or sriphal while its botanical name is Aegle Marmelos. This plant belongs to Rutaceae family, which is moderately sized slender aromatic tree. The height normally extends up to 6.0 - 7.9 meters. The bel trees usually grow at an altitude of 1200m where other varieties of trees like Acacia Catechu (Khair) and Bahunia Resimosa are found.

The bel tree serves various purposes. For example, the leaves of the tree are used as fabrifuge and  opthalmic (for eye disease) as well as medicine for ulcer. The young leaves and shoots are used as fodder for cattle, sheep and goats. Fresh leaves are used as a remedy for dropsy while the juice extracted from the pulp of the ripe fruit, especially in the Terai region, is said to give a cooling effect to the body almost similar to popular soft drinks.

This apart, even the unripe fruit helps one to increase his or her digestive power or in controlling diarrhoea. The root bark, on the otherhand, works as medicine for intermittent fever and fish poison. The astringent rind of the ripe fruit and bark are employed in dying and tanning purposes.

The bel tree which serves various useful purposes are mostly planted within the vicinity of Hindu temples for its wood and leaves are almost a necessity for worshipping of the deity. It is believed that bel (known as Wood Apple tree in English) is a favourite of Lord Shiva. It is said that once when the Lord drank poison churned out of the raging sea in anger, the antidote extracted from the Bel fruit averted the disaster from taking place. In other words it nullified the effect of the poison. In the Hindu tradition One hundred and eight Bel leaves (locally called Bel patras) are offered to Lord Shiva on every Monday falling in the month of Shrawan by the married women which is said to bring good health and prosperity to their
husband.

In the Newar community, there is a unique tradition of marrying their girl child to the bel fruit. One must be familiar with the term bel bibaha. The marriage between a virgin Newari girl and bel fruit is held before the girl attains puberty. This ensures that the girl acquires active and healthy reproductive powers.

Here the bel fruit is the bridegroom, representative of the eternal bachelor  (Lord Kumar, son of Lord Shiva ). In this marriage ceremony, known as Ihi in Newari, the bel fruit must look rich and ripe and must not be damaged in any kind. If by chance the fruit turns out to be a damaged one, it is believed that the girl or the bride will be destined to spend the rest of her life with an ugly looking unfaithful husband after her real marriage. However the most significant aspect of the ‘Bel Marriage’ is that once married to Lord Kumar, the woman will remain pure and chaste and even if her husband dies after the marriage she would not be considered a widow, the case in point being that she is already married to the Lord.

So much for technology

-Subhash Atreya

This millennium’s eve was probably the most replenishing moment till now when the sky above lighted above with blinding firecrackers signifying the ecstasy inside us. With smooth Y2K bug rollover, all our trepidation ended leaving us as elated as ever. But the fading away of evanescent brightness revealed something more gruesome than the mere darkness behind.

When millions of people were enjoying the jubilance all around the world, some people were locked inside their bleak homes in Chechnya. As all other nations, Russia also witnessed the loud explosion, the glowing light swallowing the darkness of the night but this time, it was not the fire-crackers but deleterious missiles exploding and dragging the city towards the inferno. It was terror and fear of death that escorted the Chechenians and Russian soldiers to the new millenium. To them, the inception of the new era brought misery and nothing else.

To exacerbate the matter , it was not only Chechnians who welcomed the New Year with horror. Indonesians also tasted the same sardonic gleam. The gravity was much more in this case because the root of this horror lied inside the religious ground. Both Muslims and Christians were equally desperate to placate their pernicious rage with each other’s corpse. The violence escalated as the world entered into the new millenium, thus prophesying the future of human entity.

The preview of the future has already been shown, more is yet to come. People are blindfolded by their triumph that they cannot see their failures to eliminate misery, to alleviate pain that people are suffering from.

Instead of unifying , people are moving into diverse directions. Countries are breaking into two; people are Christians and Muslims first , human later; separate country  is being demanded  for separate religious groups .Violence  has became a trademark of future creating chaos everywhere.

On the one hand, scientists are busy trying to discover medicines that would combat fatal diseases but on the other hand ,another group of scientists are designing biological weapons. One scientist verses another .Where will it lead? Though scientists have found cures to several diseases, they cannot find the cure for misery and sorrow unless they abide by the philosophies of peace.

Thus, people just seem to be loitering around without any destiny .All technological advancement and space exploration is incomplete in their purpose if they do not benefit human. Human benefit is the purpose and objective of everything .Then why is this digression? Why are people  diverting  from the doctrine of  human development? What is the significance of all our achievements if it annihilates human existence ? After all, where are we heading? Perhaps ,a different and better perception is required to answer all these questions.

The responsibility of everything will soon be bequeathed to the present students all around the world. Every student has a right to fulfil his dream, to earn a lot of money and enjoy his or her life. But before buying a car or going to a pub, please do think about the people who are brutally tormented by their own life that they wish for death. Perhaps then, your dream will itself change.

Time for some Mela

-Dikshya Thakuri

I can’t even think of a single children’s magazine that  I would have loved to lay my tiny little fingers on when I was a child, because children’s magazines were unheard of at that time in Nepal. But times have changed and a certain section of the Nepali society has finally felt the growing need of giving a broader outlook to children and not just limit their understanding to bookish knowledge. But there is still a larger section in the backround which believes knowledge to be confined only within the text books. They are the ones who yell at their children if they are caught reading magazines and story books. This is the absurd reality of Nepal. 

Though Mela, a monthly children’s magazine in Nepali is not the first of its kind to have finally arrived in the market, it is unquestionably the first children’s colour magazine in this country. Its approach towards the target group is entirely different from others that are struggling to survive and that is exactly what makes it stand out from the rest. The colourful layout of the magazine is definitely eye-catching and a wider range of interesting subjects like poems, stories, travelogues, profiles of child personalities, crosswords and jokes are sure to hold the readers’ attention.

Its' simplicity is as appealing as the lively look of the magazine and the high sounding jargon that generally goes beyond an average school going student’s head is nowhere in sight.

Since the magazine’s target group is children between 8 to14, various areas that may be of interest to them are covered, thereby catering to different levels of intelligence and knowledge.

Though there are a couple of magazines for children, out in the market, a positive response from them at the moment is a far cry and to expect a sudden boom in the present scenario would be like asking for the moon. In order to bring about favourable changes, there needs to be some face-lifting in the attitude of parents and elders whose idea of knowledge and educaton is still rooted to the old
ways.

Another hitch to the existing problem is a  handful of magazines’ microscopic focus on Nepali and their total neglect of English. But those involved in the magazine say that the publication has plans to come out with an English issue in the near future. All in all they are quite optimistic about the expected response for Mela.