doctor ordered

By Tilak Pokharel

Three European ladies of diverse professions alighted at the country’s only gateway for foreigners, Tribhuvan International Airport, with "luggage" weighing more than just a few kilogrammes, infact, almost a ton on May 4. The luggage did not contain any food or gifts for someone near and dear in Nepal but inside were clothes and medical equipment of various kinds brought for the poor and needy children of this poverty-stricken Himalayan Kingdom.

Not social work professionals but the ladies were very much inclined to social work and their hearts were telling them to work for the poor children. Among the three were Susanne Lucker, researcher at Henkel Chemical Company in Germany, and two medical professionals from Holland, Ines von Rosenstiel and Chavlatte Gaedvolle. They had also hired some professional photographers.

During their two-week stay in Nepal, they spent the first week chiefly by distributing the materials they brought along with them and giving lectures to Nepalese medical professionals, and they rejoiced in spending an extra week visiting different mesmerizing natural and historical places and monuments with natural and cultural sites.

Not only the children of labourers working in Ichangu Stone Factory, Swoyambhu, got time to be happy, at least for a short time, but so did the children of Bal Mandir, Shaligram Children House and some other school kids, enjoying the trio’s company and the different merchandise presented to them. Moreover, some dying children of Kanti Children’s Hospital got proper medicine.

One of the members of the two-member photographic crew, Karl Rabele, said that he gave away some medicine he brought for personal purposes to some dying children of the Kanti Hospital - the country’s only children’s hospital which increased its charge in ICU by 2,400 percent recently. One day, he was seen hurrying to the hospital for this sole purpose though he was not feeling well.

There was Axel Kreutz along with Rabele both of who came with Lucker to make documentaries on the situation of Nepalese children for some European channels including the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Axel Kreutz also said that he basically works for Germany based station RTL TV Channel. And he is hopeful about broadcasting the documentaries he makes on Nepalese children by that channel as well as the BBC.

The seed of helping Nepali children was implanted inside the heart of Lucker when she first came to Nepal as a tourist in October 2000. She said that the Henkel is going to grant assistance for children’s welfare to 125 children projects in 52 countries, on the occasion of the company’s 125th anniversary. The company has earmarked a total of 1.25 million Euros for this purpose. The model for this public welfare campaign was the "MIT (Make and Impact on Tomorrow) Initiative" which was established by Henkel in 1998. In this regard, the company is going to initiate 14 projects in Nepal, India, Africa and other countries. Henkel is the leader in adhesives, surface technologies and industrial and institutional hygiene on a worldwide scale.

Among the 900 kilogrammes of material they brought to Nepal, chemical powder and some other equipment were provided by the company while other materials including the clothes and stationeries were personally managed by Lucker, and her friends Ines von Rosenstiel and Chavlatte Gaedvolle.

In their mission, Ram Pratap Thapa, Director of Nepal-German Friendship Association, played a tremendous role. He advised and assisted the team at the time when they sought his help. "This time we just came to know what the children’s hospital and the country, as a whole, is missing in terms of children’s status," said Lucker. "It was not well organized since this visit is on a personal basis." She also said that her team is planning to come again in December with proper objectives and a holistic view to help the poor and forgotten children of Nepal.

Apart from helping the children, the two medical professionals, Rosenstiel and Gaedvolle, gave two lectures on "Hygiene and Infection" to the child-attending doctors of the hospital. The medics said that they want to initiate doctors exchange programmes between Nepal and Holland so that each of them would learn more about each other’s country.

The ills and perils of Kathmandu – End of a romance

By Damakant Jayshi

Before I came here two years ago, I used to day dream a lot about Kathmandu and almost always a suppressed chuckle escaped my lips. It was no less than fantasizing about one’s still-elusive-that-special girl, about whom one knows but has not had the (mis)fortune of meeting her before or the meeting was years back. Mere thinking about her fills oneself with some difficult-to-explain sensations and emotions. You dream and dream and dream and your heart beat increases, with extra blood pumping your heart. When at long last you meet her, it may or may not match your expectations.

She may turn out to be a gorgeous, vivacious and beautiful girl but she may also be a big disappointment, depending upon how much your image of her has fallen by the wayside.

Kathmandu to me proved to be a huge disappointment. My secret romance with her had reached Everest proportions and as deep as the Challenger Deep in the Pacific when I was back in Kolkata (then Calcutta). In early 1999, I had already reached a decision that I would leave the City of Palaces for the City of Temples.

And I was almost impatient to get here. My impatience was burning in me, fuelled by my imagination of the beauty and charm of Kathmandu, based on my earlier 2-night (in 1989) and 3-night (1994) sojourn in this holy city. I had roamed much then, hard-pressed by the work in hand. Moreover, a book on Kathmandu that I read in the school library where I used to teach had heightened my admiration for this ancient city. It was like watching the beautiful childhood photograph of the "special one" and you are on a high, thinking about the future prospects.

When I was bidding my final adieu, I was, despite being sad on leaving Calcutta forever, very happy for two reasons. One of leaving the filth, the squalor and the pollution behind and the other of meeting the city of my dreams.

But the dream proved to be just that: a dream and nothing else. What a mighty fall it was. Kathmandu not only had all the ills of Kolkata in terms of filth, squalor and blocked pavements, but it also had the additional misery of water scarcity. Add to that, the old city buses which strangely enough have very high footboards, with the prospect of falling off it hanging like a Damocles’ sword over one’s head.

Walking is one of the most pleasurable pastimes for me and I miss it terribly here in Kathmandu. During my fantasy, I had always thought of long walks in and around a city that was surrounded by mountains on all sides. Alas! No such luck here. If you want to walk, go for a trek in the arms of the mountains away from the city.

Our city planners are too kind-hearted to clean the holy Bagmati river, the banks of which could provide an excellent walking route. If the city and its surroundings become a walker’s paradise, the business of the people along the trekking routes might suffer. So all the tiny tea-cum-snack shops, restaurants, boarding/lodging houses and hotels must thank our civic authorities for providing them a source of sustenance.

Maybe I expected too much. Greater the expectation, bigger the disappointment. Had I been pragmatic enough, I might not have expected a world out here. I was, it turned out, day dreaming.

Well, the Great Bard had said, "Sweet are the uses of adversity". In a way it was a relief to find Kathmandu a perfect sister of Kolkata. At least I am in the midst of a familiar environment. No pangs for missing Kolkata. It is right out here in all its glory.

Haphazard construction of houses, rampant defacing of the city and residential walls, blocked pavements, litter and garbage everywhere, parking just where one feels like, roads or what are left of them with sub-standard material – you name it, the city has it.

The current monsoons also remind me of the blocked roads back there. Kathmandu is not far behind. Just wait for a slight rain and watch the spectacle at Thapathali-Ram Shah Path crossing, on the road between St Xaviers’ School and Central Zoo in Jawalakhel.

My favourite season had been turned into a living nightmare due to the clogged drains, waterlogged streets and roads full of potholes. I used to love the monsoons, but could not after Holi-sprinkled colours started appearing on my clothes, only they were not colours but liquid dirt and filth. While washing my clothes, I decided that the monsoon was no longer my favourite season.

There was this fond hope that in the city with slopes, there would not be any water-logging and splashing of dirty water on oneself by thoughtless drivers. And that the monsoons would be reinstated as my favourite season. It did not happen.

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