Seeing images of Nepal through Reeta’s eyes 

Reeta Mandhar has drawn her themes from nature and day to day life. She hasn’t limited her talent to just one medium.

With equal dexterity, she has experimented with different mediums like oil, acrylic, spray painting, water colour and wash media.

Pragya RAJOURIA

Compare flowers growing in the wild and a landscaped garden tended by a master gardener. If the latter is the art exhibition of a master artist, Reeta’s Manandhar is the former. Differences between art works of the two will be innumerable but both will share the common attribute, beauty.

Reeta’s strokes may not be technically perfect or her colour combination outstanding but the spontaneity and beauty of what she has drawn shows that she is very talented. The artist has drawn her theme from nature and day to day life. She hasn’t limited her talent to just one medium. With equal dexterity, Reeta has experimented with different media like oil, acrylic, spray painting, water colour and wash media. And her subjects are as numerous. Different assortment of canvasses in the exhibition displayed deities, flowers, people, beautiful landscapes and houses in rural areas. She has grabbed the greenery in her landscape paintings in a superb way, which drew wide appreciation from the viewers.

Her water colour paintings stand apart from rest of her works. The people she has drawn are very expressive and real to life. Innocence radiates from the faces of her chubby little boys. Worry lines and colour shades in her other human characters clearly show their emotions. In her expert hands the man with hukka, Thalaki woman and elderly ladies all come alive in unique ways. Colour wise also her water colour paintings show much maturity than her works on other mediums.

But master artist Kiran Manandhar has different thing to say about her paintings. "I think that Reeta should go for abstract paintings and hone her skills in this genre. I have already told her that I liked her painting titled "Emotions III" the best among all her works in display," said Manandhar pointing to a big, beautiful oil painting. " It’s up to Reeta to decide which style she wants to adopt and develop," he added.

"I have displayed works on various mediums so that I can get comments from senior artists and art critics," said Reeta. "On the basis of their feedback I will decide which style I should develop. Regarding the medium I prefer to work on, I feel more confident working on water and oil," she added.

At the young age of 24 Reeta is already well known in the circle of artists, both famed and little known. "Images of Nepal" is her first solo exhibition. Through this exhibition those outside the artists’ circle also got a chance to see and appreciate the works of this promising artist. When Reeta matures as an artist, we will have a lady artist of our own, we can all be proud of.

Pleasures of food & wine 

Wines are to be relished and not taken too seriously. Learn to combine suitable wine with what you dine, writes Suvecha Pant

Wine enhances the flavour of food, and food can bring out the unique characteristics of wine. Pairing wines with foods can be relatively easy or highly complex. Correctly matching wine and food can help bring out the distinct flavours within both. A good match will bring out the nuances will enhance the textures and will complement the flavours of each.

Although, the best and most pleasurable option is to find a wine that you enjoy to drink with the food that you’re serving if you’re throwing an elegant bash if you follow some simple rules you would be sure to impress your guests.

In most cases matching white wine with fish is a good combination. The acidity in white wine helps soften the natural flavours of the fish without overpowering it, adding a level of complexity to both the wine and fish that is not possible to achieve when the two are consumed separately. Again, a bold red wine augments the flavours and textures of heavy meals that feature red meat. The complexities of flavour present in most white wines would be lost in such a meal.

Matching is also a matter of individual taste and preference. Anything that helps make a meal more enjoyable and memorable to the individual consumers should be taken into account. However, Keep this in mind: Just as pairing wine and food correctly makes both elements taste better, pairing them poorly can ruin your meal.

Most of the world’s wines are produced from no more than a handful of different grape varieties. A little knowledge of the grape varieties will make it easy while choosing the right type of wine. Below are listed some of the most common types of wine.

Red grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon - Arguably the king of red grapes, it has an intense blackcurrant flavour. Cabernet can be easily found on the menu in the restaurants of Nepal. Gamay - The Beaujolais grape produces light-styled cherry and raspberry-flavoured wines. Grenache - Produces velvety-ripe, fruity wines. Merlot - A fashionable grape with soft, black cherry and blackcurranty flavours, often blended with Cabernet Sauvignon. It is a favourite amongst the ladies. Pinot Noir - Good young Pinots are light, silky and fruity. Mature Pinots often have an intense aroma of game and truffles. Sangiovese - The Chianti grape produces light, attractive, everyday wines with herby, fruity flavours. Tempranillo - Makes stylish wines with a characteristic strawberry flavour.

White grapes: Chardonnay - The perfect introduction to white wine. Styles vary from light and fresh, to heavily-oaked, buttery, tropical-fruit-flavoured wines. Chenin Blanc - Used for a range of wines including dry and sharp, sparkling, medium and extra-sweet wines. Mature examples have a nutty, honeyed flavour. Gewürztraminer - Dry or sweet, with an intensely aromatic spiciness. It goes well with spicy food. Muscat - The wine actually smells of the grape itself. Muscats vary from rich, sweet and fortified to light, floral and dry. Riesling - Rieslings range from dry, light and apple crisp to rich, sweet and honey flavoured. Riesling is perfect to drink during evenings in summer. Sauvignon Blanc - Also known as Fumé Blanc, it has a delightful fresh, tangy style with distinctive flavours of gooseberries, elderflower and asparagus. Sémillon - Ranges from dry, light lemon-flavoured to sweet wines with aromas of barley sugar and peaches.

Wine and Health:

Wine, used as a medicine for over 5,000 years is man’s oldest medicine. In moderation, consumption of wine can reduce the death rate from vascular disease by up to 50 percent. Moderation is a maximum of four standard drinks per day for a male and two for a female, where a standard drink contains 10 grams of alcohol, depending on the percentage of alcohol contained in the wine. It is also a proven fact that wine helps the brain to function better. Therefore, wine in moderation can be termed as a "brain food" or "brain friendly".

Stills of prowling Predators

In Nepal, which is home to 300-odd Royal Bengals, wildlife experts monitor tigers either by collecting and analyzing their pugmarks, or by simply keeping their photographic evidences and comparing them with new ones later on, writes Surendra Phuyal

With the onset of autumn, park rangers and wildlife biologists have started nature conservation initiatives anew. The efforts are concentrated mainly in the protected areas of the Terai bordering India, which is home to such exotic and flagship species as the Royal Bengal tiger, the Asiatic rhino and the elephant. Protecting them from becoming targets of the unscrupulous poachers to monitoring their movement, and maintaining their habitat to protecting their prey species, the job is a tougher one. "Along with adult breeders, the man-eater tigers too are on the prowl in the jungles," says one official at the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation (KMTNC). "That makes the job scarier at times."

Like in human nearly human settlements, the rainy monsoon season creates a lot of havoc in the jungles too. So, the Nepalese band of wildlife conservationists is currently in the jungles of Shukla Phanta, Bardia and Chitwan. The cold winter season has already set in, but it’s comparatively warmer in the dense tropical and sub-tropical forests and grasslands of the Terai. "That’s why wildlife monitoring is normally done during autumn and winter," says Narayan Poudel, Chief Ecologist at the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC).

Different species of wildlife – such as rhinos, elephants, tigers and even deer – need constant monitoring. But the tiger often gets priority because a healthy tiger means a healthy ecosystem. Beginning mid-November, the band of conservationists is working to monitor tigers in the Royal Shukla Phanta Wildlife Reserve in far-western Terai. The band would later move to Royal Bardia National Park and then to Chitwan. Their mission: collect and analyze pugmarks of the big cats and verify whether the tigers they captured in the camera last year are surviving or not, whether they have become injured, or got ill, and so on.

In Nepal, which is home to 300-odd Royal Bengals, wildlife experts monitor tigers either by collecting and analyzing their pugmarks, or by simply keeping their photographic evidences and comparing them with new ones later on. The technique of photographing wild tiger has been in practice since the early 1990s, according to Anil Manandhar, Programme Director at the World Wide Fund (WWF) for nature conservation Nepal. "It’s reported to have been the most reliable method to monitor elusive animals like the tiger, the clouded- and the snow- leopards," he says.

The conservation technicians and experts have been using Trail Master (TM) 1500 trap units. TM 1500 – which has the capacity to restore thousands of events - is referred to as a two-piece active infrared trail monitoring system, which sets up an invisible infrared beam across the trail between the transmitters and is received in a small window on the receiver. "Whenever an animal passes the beam, the camera attached to the system records the action with the time and date," says a technician.

So far, the conservationists have photographic evidences of 33 adult tigers of Chitwan, 42 of Bardia and 19 of Shukla Phanta. According to latest estimates, there are between 93 and 97 adult Royal Bengal tigers in the Terai parks – that roughly takes the total population to between 250 and 300.

The DNPWC, the KMTNC and the WWF have been the key nature conservation partners in Nepal. And it is through their joint efforts that the tedious task of monitoring, protecting and conserving the endangered species of wildlife – and their habitats - has become possible. But now concept of nature conservation seems to have transcended territorial boundaries, with wildlife officials from Nepal and India working in a coordinated manner to protect – and revive – the badly fragmented habitats of the tiger. If only the humans could protect this beautiful symbol of all that is wild on earth forever.

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