Destination Phidim

Barbara Adams

Kangchenjunga Tea Estate has been the name on the label of organic tea to which I am addicted. Therefore, when invited to visit a remote part of eastern Nepal where this tea is grown curiosity got the better of me, and I accepted.

Nepalis drink lots of tea. Most of the tea is sprayed with lots of chemicals. The fact that Nepalis now have a choice to avoid tea laced with carcinogenic chemicals is credit to the man whose dream it is to turn Nepal back into its organic farming origins: Dipak Banskota.

The trip turned out to be more of an adventure than we expected. It took us four vehicles, eight bottles of mineral water, one bulldozer and nerves of steel to get from Biratnagar to Phidim. If you think remote areas of Nepal today are different from Nepal 40 years ago, you should have been with us.

First disaster: total brake failure two-thrids of the way to Ilam on on Banskota’s ageing Toyota Landcruiser. We crawled on first gear and trepidation through a Hollywood-like thunderstorm. In Ilam we found refuge in a hotel located at what passed for the local bus park. Awakened at four by buses screaming their horns off, we walked through Nepal’s oldest tea plantation at five. The sculptured hills of tea glowed like striated green velvet. Tea is as good to look at as it is to drink.

We abandoned the Toyota and set out for Phidim in a borrowed pickup. Almost immediately the skies opened up and dumped a suppressed monsoon downpour on us. The rain finally abated for us to note with shock that some hundred meters ahead of us the road had disappeared. It had become a mountain of mud and tangled trees. The landslide had happened only ten minutes earlier, according to the driver of the only other vehicle stopped on our side. On the Phidim side was an ambulance with critically ill man who was being transferred to the hospital in Dharan.

Decision: Do we climb over the debris and find a vehicle on the other side, or do we retreat and try to find a bulldozer? We decided on the latter. Thanks to the resourcefulness and the many friends and Dipak’s relatives in the area, someone who knew someone in charge of road clearing was found. Half an hour later as we sipped inorganic tea, we saw some very professional looking road-clearing machinery speeding towards the mud slide. One hour later the road was clear and we were past the disaster area, but the ambulance with its ailing passenger was still stuck. The driver of the bus directly in front of the ambulance had chosen this crucial time to disappear to an unknown destination for some tea!

Dipak is the leader of the cooperative movement in Nepal. Clearly truck drivers too need to learn about cooperation. Fortunately the resourceful Dipak managed to coax the many waiting vehicles and drivers to move a few feet in one direction or another until the ambulance was finally freed to go on its way. We too, were freed, but not for long.

About one kilometer ahead on the challenging dirt road was a sea of deep furrowed mud. A truck on the oncoming lane had been caught, had lost a wheel and had been abandoned. Our lane had furrows too deep to maneuver. Our driver understandably panicked and backed out of the way of the line of lumbering trucks which had been following us from the mudslide site. They all ground to a halt and shovels and manpower were somehow squeezed us and our baggage in between its own shovel wielding crew.  It was my first experience in 37 years in Nepal, riding in the front of a Tata truck.

We were just beginning to relax when suddenly lights throughout the truck’s interior began to flash and an ex shovel-wielder near me seemed to be trying to set a fire within the truck. On the dashboard were wildly gyrating red lights and over my head, slightly less alarming pastel colored ones. When the radio came on full blast with a religious Bhajan I realized that my neighbor wasn’t lighting fires, he was lighting incense sticks to place near the image of Lord Pashupatinath, I began to relax.

On such a road it was not only correct, but necessary to pray for protection. I myself made a silent prayer of thanks. After all, had we not stopped for a cup of tea shortly before the devastating mud slide, we might have been under the mud, instead of free to search for a bulldozer!

The truck deposited us in the pouring rain on an unlit corner of the dirt road somewhere between Phidim and the Tea Cooperative. There, miraculously, we found a telephone. Half an hour later our fourth and final vehicle appeared. After negotiating another hair-raising, half-destroyed dirt road, the groaning tea estate truck deposited us safely at the Kanchenjunga Tea Estate. Nepal is surely a destination for Adventure Tourism, and our passage to Phidim could qualify!

Barbara Adams is a Kathmandu-based writer and columnist. (upload date: June 17)

Inevitability of talks 

C. K Lal  

Deng Xiao Ping said it does not matter if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice. Deng transformed Mao’s black cat of terror into a meowing white kitten of the free-market. Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge are history. Many former Naxalites in neighboring India have turned into saffronites. Even the North and South Koreans are talking peace. But in Nepal thousands have been killed in a widening Peoples’ War, and all we are doing is talking about ending it.

Congress leaders have been talking about talks for quite some time now. They talked with fellow-Congressites, they talked with the main opposition party, and they even hosted a talk-shop for the nine party front of sundry lefties. However, they have never talked to the ones that matter: the Maoists.

Former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba is the man designated to do the talking. All he has been doing so far is saying that it’s a great idea. One wonders: who is stopping him from holding talks? Or, is it that all he wants is to keep talking his way into the Party President’s chair come convention time?

Comrade Prachanda also likes to shoot faxes to the press saying he wants to talk. The day after his warriors surrounded Panchkatiya Police Post at Dhime VDC in Jajarkot District and killed one police inspector, twelve policemen and seven innocent bystanders including women and children, he was busy issuing appeals about pre-conditions for talks.

Home Minister Govinda Raj Joshi gets straight to the point: Maoists are terrorists so there is no point discussing anything. Home Minister-aspirant Khum Bahadur Khadka is another great believer in talks. When the dreaded Operation Kilo Sierra Two against the Maoists was conducted, they were terrorists for him too, because he was the Home Minister at that time. Since then, Maoists have killed a lot more people, and look who is saying what. Anyway, what is stopping Mr. Khadka from holding talks? He may not be the Home Minister, but he is supposed to be a senior Congressman.

Prime Minister Koirala has gone beyond talking, he is walking. He has promised to go to the Maoist affected regions himself, with package programs for development. Pious objective, no doubt, but it will be better if he did so after installing a worthy successor in Kathmandu before doing a Jai Prakash Narayan in Jajarkot.

President Dwight Eisenhower of United States of America is once reputed to have said, “Change is the law of life, and unless there is peaceful change, there is bound to be violent change.” Ike’s observation is worthy of contemplation by both the government as well as the rebels.

 The mayhem in the name of Maoism has gone for far too long. The time to put a stop to this madness. If you don’t get into talking terms soon, there will be nothing to talk about. Enough is enough. Stop giving speeches, stop discussing modalities, just do it. (upload date: June 18)

The People don’t want war.
Maoists maul the police while Congress fiddles, and the economy gets its first knocks. 
Binod Bhattarai, Chief Correspondent

The Maoists are seemingly winning the Battle. The big question is: who will win the War that is being fought in the name of the Nepali people?

The Police, isolated in vulnerable forward bases, is in limbo, in the absence of clear orders from its political masters. Not only the government, but the entire opposition and the intelligentsia are confused about what to do. The Police are forced to make do. 

"We have initiated a People's War and that is the only alternative left for the people..."                Comrade Prachanda in Revolutionary Worker #1043

But this could change with the government’s decision to set up a well-equipped paramilitary force trained by the Army in using automatic rifles and counter-insurgency tactics, including landmine detection.

The paramilitary Armed Police Force is going to cost about Rs 2 billion and is likely to be ready for action by late autumn. The budget allocation for the police for the coming fiscal year has shot up to Rs. 5.3 billion from about Rs. 3 billion the year before.

Both sides, it seems, want to use a carrot and stick approach. So both are flexing their muscles to be able to negotiate from a position of strength.

The latest humiliation for Nepal Police occurred on the night of 7 June. The siege and destruction of the Panchkatia police post in Jajarkot was proof that the Maoists are escalating their offensives, while maintaining that they are open to talks. 

The Maoists are using classic storming tactics on the ground, and taking full advantage of the guidanceless Nepal Police’s lack of both motivation and equipment to fight the insurgency. Then there is the incredibly cynical power tussle within the ruling Nepali Congress, which the Maoists are using to full advantage.

The Panchkatia attack was a replay of the classic tactics used by the Maoist insurgents against police. A group of about 1,000 probably also including villagers allegedly used as human shields, attacked the outpost from the settlement side.

Police said their 51-strong force was unwilling to fire at the attackers for fear of hitting locals. Using flare-tipped arrows, the Maoists lit up the target and pelted them with homemade explosives. The police were sitting ducks, unable to return fire into the darkness with any accuracy.

“Our men did the best they could. When you are pinned down like that, it is difficult to lift your head to take aim,” said Ram Kaji Bantaba, Additional Inspector General of Police in charge of operations. Another policeman who has fought on the frontline: “They attack in waves. If one falls, he is immediately dragged away and replaced by another.”

The latest phase in the Maoist offensive seems to be a planned attempt to undermine the Nepali economy as well. Robberies of trekking groups and attacks on a Pokhara tourist resort in April may well hit the autumn 2000 tourism season hard. In the past week, key Indian joint ventures in Nepal, Surya Tobacco and Colgate-Palmolive were firebombed by suspected Maoists in Simara and Hetauda.

It is becoming clear that the Police is fighting this war with one hand tied behind its back. Previous operations such as the one code-named “Kilo Sierra Two” last year cost them local support, and even party politicians in Kathmandu are unwilling to stick their necks out in support.

The mainstay of the police arsenal is the First World War Enfield “three-knot-three” single-load rifles. They heat up quickly and jam, and have proven to be no match to the gelatine charges lobbed by Maoists.

The Maoists are taking a leaf out of their mentor, Mao Zedong, using psychological-warfare tactics to maximum advantage. Typically, a surprise attack begins with explosions and deafening chants of revolutionary slogans. Escape routes are sealed with trip-wire mines and sharpshooters, flares and explosives create chaos, and lethal explosives hand-crafted from pressure cookers and pipes are set off. 

The Maoist arsenal includes knives, clubs, muzzle-loader muskets and rifles taken from the police. What they lack in sophistication, they make up with guerrilla tactics and firepower—thought to be made from the stash of four tons of gelatine that was looted from a construction project in Charikot four years ago.

THE MAOIST ARSENAL: Pipe bombs with gelatine sac (top) and the infamous pressure cooker bomb (right)

“Their strategy now is hit-and-run guerrilla warfare,” said Achyut Krishna Kharel, chief of the Nepal Police. “We are very visible targets. Police posts are accessible to all. Anyone can walk in and scout our defences and the trenches. We cannot withdraw, because our job is to maintain law and order.”

During the beginning of the People’s War there was concern over police atrocities. Now, both sides have been accused of human rights abuses.

Perhaps because of its earlier role in Kilo Sierra, there is little public sympathy evident for the Police today when the war started going wrong. Nearly 200 policemen have been killed since the insurgency began in 1996, with a sharp rise in deaths since March 1999.

Most have been killed in raids on remote garrisons or blown up by improvised mines along village trails. As many as 15 policemen were felled in one single attack, at Ghartigaon in Ropla. The insurgency has cost over 1,300 lives, many of them civilians caught in the crossfire.

Says one senior policeman:  “When Sri Lanka has a civil war, it is the army which is made to fight. But when there is a similar war brewing in Nepal, the political parties field a police force with its hands tied. Either the police has to be empowered to fight like an army, or the army has to be brought out of the barracks.”

After making initial noise of using the sahi sena, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has now retreated. And the Maoists while keeping up the pressure have studiously kept clear of creating any incident that may raise hackles in the military brass. It is the ordinary constables, assistant sub-inspectors, sub-inspectors and inspectors who bear the brunt of this increasingly brutal war.

The first hope that there may be a resolution came when Comrade Prachanda (Pushpa Kamal Dahal) said he was willing to talk to the government. That offer may have been made from a position of strength or weakness, or it may have been a ploy to gain time, but it was an opportunity to see what the Maoists’ minimum demands were.

Unfortunately, this opportunity has been all but lost with the tussle for party leadership between Girija Prasad Koirala and Sher Bahadur Deuba. Over the past week, Koirala and Deuba have been cynically playing political football with the possibility of talks.

“The talks have not begun, why argue about the agenda?” Deuba said on June 18. He was responding to remarks made by Koirala about the need for one to get the talks started. “Everyone knows about the Maoist agenda, it has appeared in newspapers,” Deuba added. Home Minister Govinda Raj Joshi, who is supposed to be commanding the counter-insurgency, knew less. He told parliament on 13 June: “HMG has no knowledge of what the Maoists’ demands are.”

A day after the Panchkatia killings, Prachanda repeated his demand for the creation of a “minimum atmosphere” for talks. Deuba responded by saying he was open to talk about everything within the framework of the constitution. Koirala had reassured all saying that the Commission headed by Deuba had “full authority” to talk.

Clearly, the Nepali Congress leadership is playing with the country’s future by not considering the insurgency with more urgency. The other political parties, including the main Opposition UML, seem to be content to see the government squirm. This lack of seriousness means that the body bags continue to pile up, and a war that the people don’t want rages on. (From the Nepali Times Demo issue, upload date: June 23/00)  

Literature in a Hostile Terrain
Manjushree Thapa

With a literacy rate near 30 percent, Nepal seems unlikely grounds indeed for those who seek to create imaginary worlds in language. Yet there are hundreds of writers and poets all over the country-an alarming number of whom are concentrated in Kathmandu Valley-who persist in writing despite the fact that no one asks them to write, and no one thanks them for doing so.

Writers and poets mirror society and offer new visions that enrich the lives of their readers. In return for the efforts, though, Nepal's creative writers are rarely even paid royalties by publishers, and many must in fact subsidise their own publishing.

The established literary magazines of Nepal pay about Rs 500 per story, while most just offer the thrill of seeing one's work in print. To support themselves, writers and poets work as professors, lawyers, bankers, columnists -- even Members of Parliament. Still, few of them can afford to buy foreign books, and must content themselves with borrowing dog-eared copies from friends and from poorly stocked libraries. Those who don't read English scour bookstalls for cheap Hindi translations of world literature, or read only Nepali writings.

Women writers, in particular, are so pressed with work and family commitments that they hardly have any free time to write. And for those who live by computers, it is humbling to realise that almost all novels, stories and poems written today are still painstakingly written and revised by hand on foolscap sheets. All this is done for a tiny and utterly indifferent readership: a print run of 1,100 books is the most that a writer can hope for in Nepal, and even then, the free copies are  the only books in real demand.

Yet Nepal's writers and poets keep writing, thanks mainly, it seems, to an unshakable faith in the worth of their own words. Large egos can sometimes be a blessing.

Meeting in tea shops and seedy brew houses, at bookshops and in their offices, today's writers and poets exchange thoughts, opinions, criticism and gossip with great verve. Organisations like the Royal Nepal Academy, as well as other writers' associations and informal groups hold readings, gatherings and literary events all over the country. Many vociferous statements are made on the topic of literature. Small, divergent, sometimes cliquish schools of thought are led by eccentric and often impossibly egotistical personalities.

Manifestos are drafted regularly, while movements begin and end abruptly.  A shocking number of awards-though most with modest purses-are distributed at many stiff, officious ceremonies. And the number of near-bankrupt literary magazines found in the market would astonish the more money-minded.

 An impressive variety of voices emerges from all this hectic literary activity. The question "What is Nepal's contemporary literature like?" can be answered with one word: "Diverse." While some of today's writers still favor traditional Sanskrit-derived forms, others opt for either revolutionary or western romanticism,  or social realism, or prose of Hemingway-like restraint. Others write predominantly psychological works heavily influenced by Freudian theory. Some poets pen fiery free verse for the masses while others are wildly experimental and abstract in their style. A growing number of writers and poets are writing in their mother tongues, and some regional writers mix languages, reflecting Nepal's multilingual nature. As in much of the world, the writing of the left thrives here, but it cannot be said that there is any one dominant school of literature in today's Nepal. My own view,  which I will refrain from tiresomely repeating in this column, is that the literary community of Nepal embodies the postmodern conditions described by current western literary theory. The ancient, the modern and the contemporary are simultaneously present here in ruptured, discontinuous and wholly unexpected ways.

There is, I believe, no authoritative place to begin introducing English lay readers to Nepali literature. I'll begin the first article of this column arbitrarily, then, with The Naudanda Hills, a short, compressed poem by Shailendra Sakar that grows evocatively in the reader's mind after the first simple reading. In particular, the old woman in the poem is intriguing: both wily and naive, she is at once a mother figure, huckster and world-weary commentator. She deftly translates the narrator into her son despite his resistance to it. This is one of a series of poems based on places in Sakar's versatile 1990 collection Sarpaharu Geet Gaundainan. It stands, here, as proof that hostile conditions can -remarkably -- inspire and sustain the writing of some excellent literature.

THE NAUDANDA HILLS-                 Shailendra Sakar
 Along the trail of the Muktinath trek
a simple ancient Nepali crone
examines me for quite a while and tells me
her son's gone to work in Brunei
I can't be translated into her son
Figuring I'm here to sell hashish the crone
puts on airs and coyly asks for a joint
Then she spends a long time lamenting:
what else do we have to sell to tourists
except for hashish and our bodies.

(From the Nepali Times Demo issue, upload date: June 25/00)  

Dust to Dust

By Kunda dixit

Breathe easy. Once and for all, it’s official: Kathmandu Valley’s air pollution is not as bad as Delhi or Beijing.

Now, the bad news. But it is getting worse, and for now residents have to be more worried about the dust than the other poisonous gases from vehicles.

The other myth shattering revelation: last year’s ban on diesel three wheelers (Vikram tempos) may have made the streets look cleaner, but it has not improved air quality along Kathmandu’s road corridors in any measurable way.

"Yes, after the tempos were gone, you stopped seeing that black smoke on the streets. But 20,000 more vehicles have come onto the roads in Kathmandu after the Vikrams were banned,” says Toran Sharma of the Nepal Environmental and Scientific Services (NESS).

Latest measurements prove that the additional vehicles have more than made up for the reduction of pollution, especially dust in diesel exhaust, after the 350 Vikrams were banned.

NESS has been measuring Kathmandu Valley’s air pollution levels for the past ten years, ever since it started becoming a serious health issue. The most recent monitoring results NESS did for the Asian Development Bank show that things are much worse than in 1993.

“The conclusion is that Kathmandu valley air quality is degrading, especially with regards to total suspended particulate matter,” says Sharma. And that means dust—dust from roadside rubbish, construction materials, digging, diesel smoke, brick kiln ash, stack emissions from the Himal Cement factory in Chobar.

Air quality measurements for Kathmandu consistently show that particulate pollution are up to seven times higher than safe levels set by the World Health Organisation (WHO).  Some 24,000 tons of total suspended particulates are spewed out into the valley’s atmosphere every year, of which about 7,000 tons are less than 10 microns in size.

The main sources of dust in Kathmandu Valley are (in order of emissions): the brick kilns, Himal Cement, vehicular pollution, domestic fuel, and roadside rubbish re-suspension.

Even ten years ago, pollution levels were serious enough for scientists to raise the alarm. The World Bank’s landmark Urbair Report for Kathmandu Valley in 1996 even tried to put a dollar and cent figure on the health impact of air pollution.

It calculated that in 1990, the monetary impact of pollution (mainly through deaths and sickness) was more than Rs 200 million. This excluded the impact on tourism and impact on intelligence due to leaded gasoline.

Between 1980 and 1999, there has been a 80 percent growth in the Valley population, the total number of vehicles has nearly quadrupled, and there has been a staggering 300 percent increase in the number of brick kilns.

Although the number of brick kilns has remained more or less static in the past ten years, they have become more serious polluters because of the use of low-grade coal and urban plastic trash and tyres.

The number of vehicles which increased at an average of 15 percent a year in the 1990s, has seen a sharp rise to 25 percent today. Total motorcycles and scooters with two-stroke engines, grew from 30,000 in 1990 to 120,000 in 1999.

One comparison done by M. L. Shrestha in 1995 shows that  (see figure)

 Said the Urbair report: “Suspended particles are the primary air pollution problem in the Valley, leading to both potential health risks and to visibility.”

 By the late 1990s, the number of days with good visibility at noon had gone down to 0-2 days. Sources at the airport say this has sharply increased the number of morning arrival cancellations and aborted landings by big jet aircraft in winter.

 The impact on air traffic is especially glaring because the brick kilns are concentrated on the southern approach path to the runway at Tribhuvan International Airport.

 The dust pollution is exacerbated in winter by kathmandu Valley’s bowl-shaped topography which creates severe temperature inversion trapping warm, polluted surface air beneath a blanket of colder air during the dry winter months.

The inversion layer is not dispersed till late afternoon because of the lack of wind and also because the growing population, vehicles and industries have made surface pollution worse.

 The worst areas for dust contamination in Kathmandu remain the main road corridors of Kathmandu along Kantipath, Putali Sadak, Lazimpat, the uphill to Pulchowk and the Baneswor intersection on the Airport road.

Before you start thinking of moving to the outskirts, find out more about dispersal of brick kiln dust and Chobar cement factory dust dispersal throughout the valley. Swanky new millionaire residential areas in Godavari and Bhaisepati are downwind from the worst dust emitters, and levels of dust there can be as bad as the city center depending on the direction of prevailing winds.

Toran Sharma says while dust is the main culprit, Kathmandu’s urban planners must also keep a close watch on carbon monoxide, which is growing alarmingly mainly because of the proliferation of scooters and motorcycles. 

Although carbon monoxide levels on Kathmandu sidewalks are five times higher than 1993 levels, they are still within the WHO threshold. “But if it grows at this rate, we will be at serious risk of carbon monoxide pollution. And it will not just be the roadsides that will be affected,” says Sharma.

(From the Nepali Times Demo issue, upload date: June 25/00)  

Kathmandu Gets Facelift
By Hemlata Rai

Kathmandu may be fast becoming renowned for its squalour, but  the city's residents and visitors are now getting visual pick-me-ups in pocket gardens that are sprouting all over the city.

A new initiative called the Public-Private Partnership Programme - 4P for short - has marigolds and snap dragons jostling for space in traffic islands, and has even given King Tribhuvan's statue in Tripureswor a much needed face-lift.

The 4P is a joint 'city beautification' project of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) and the private businesses. So far it has transformed seven ugly traffic islands in Kathmandu into small but colourful public gardens.

Built at a total cost of Rs 1,613,000, the seven traffic islands need Rs 722,000 to maintain every year. Under the 4P, private businesses shoulder the costs of garden development and maintenance while the KMC provides design, supervision and water.

Surya Tobacco has adopted King Tribhuvan's statue and the traffic island around it, Hotel Association of Nepal and Nepal Association of Travel Agent are maintaining the Maiti Ghar intersection, Chabahil Junction has been handed over to the Tourist Guide Association, and Aqua Water is doing Mahankalthan Road.

Agreements are pending with Nepal Tourism Board, Israel Embassy, Rotary Club and Mittal Tea.

"Our involvement in the beautification activities is a combination of attempts to contribute something good to society and boost the hotel industry in the long run," says Narendra Bajracharya of Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN), a pioneer in the partnership.

The KMC expects to complete 13 such other projects in 11 Kathmandu localities by October at an estimated cost of Rs 3,175,000, and private parties have already agreed to be involved. However, the eye sore at Tin Kune on the airport road is not in the beautification list since the land has been under litigation for over 10 years.

"I took it as a personal challenge," says Rinchin Yonzon of the KMC, who designed the 4P project and is implementing it.

At first, the 4P was met with a pinch of scepticism. After all, Kathmandu has had a surfeit of ambitious urban development plans since the 1960s--most of these have ended up in the archives of government offices, where they have been gathering dust.

This is even as the government spends nearly 30 percent of its total development budget within the 600 sq km area of the Kathmandu Valley. There are also as many as 160 government bodies whose express purpose is to work on Kathmandu's urban development. 

Yet in the past, the municipality's idea of making Kathmandu "clean and green" was usually to merely paint pedestrian fences green, or stack flowerpots on police traffic pedestals. Other similar projects also attracted big businesses eager for the publicity, but not for the long-term attention such initiatives needed.

KMC itself is still reeling from the controversy whipped up by its attempt beautify the Darahara and Sundhara area. The move drew flak after a private company was asked to manage the 25,000 sq ft area and operate a café.

The local Sudhara Rehabilitation Committee took the matter to the Supreme Court, arguing against the "commercialisation" of a historical area and alleging that Mayor Keshab Sthapit had personal interest in the arrangement. The Court has yet to decide on the case. Meanwhile, a part of the Dharhara garden that was designed and built before the stay order has gone to ruins.

The traffic island gardens are a modest step forward from previous efforts, but at least everyone agrees that they add colour and zest to an otherwise rapidly greying city. More importantly, private companies are vying to maintain them.

"Community support and strict supervision made the traffic island gardens possible," says Yonzon, who can be seen most days personally supervising the upkeep of the traffic island gardens. In Bhotahity, locals have even been inspired enough to construct and maintain their own traffic island garden without the involvement of the KMC.

Unfortunately, not all the 4P traffic island gardens are in bloom. The rock garden in Naya Baneswor has become rundown, the mayor blames lack of supervision by Ward 10 functionaries, and a fast food chain for breaking an agreement with the KMC.

(From the Nepali Times Demo issue, upload date: June 25/00)  

State of the State
C.K.Lal

Keeping the peace is expensive business. In a country where half the people live below the official poverty line, Rs 6 billion will be spent this fiscal year in policing the population. The Maoists, too, must be spending quite a bit waging their so-called Peoples’ War. One has to add up the two totals to grasp the magnitude of madness afflicting the nation.

And there are some things cannot be measured in rupees: nearly 2,000 Nepalis have been killed fighting each other in the past five years. The loss in investor confidence, the loss of  productivity, the internally displaced, and the loss that will be felt if tourism is hurt.

The dictatorship of the proletariat is as distant a dream as ever, and the government has not been able to develop any kind of a peace strategy. Meanwhile, the country continues to burn, and nobody in Kathmandu seems to be too bothered.

That is strange, because the price of making peace is often a lot less than the cost of keeping it. Perhaps there are influential interests who make short-term benefit from the conflict, and don’t want to wait around for the long-term possibility of a peace dividend.

Comrade Prachanda apparently does not want the conflict to end, either, for it will imply an end of his dictatorial days. A general is always interested in war. Peace is for politicians, and Dr. Baburam Bhattarai is more at home in that territory. Unfortunately, for common Nepalis, the venerated architect-planner appears to have less of a say in the decision-making processes within the Maoist fold than is commonly believed.

 The possibility that the Maoists are serious about peace appears bleak. Comrade Prachanda will not come to the negotiating table with any sincerity unless he is cornered—partly because he himself does not seem to know what it is that he exactly wants.

The onus for taking an initiative for talking lies on former prime minister and Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba. But Deuba too is distracted: he needs numbers to face the impending organisational elections of Nepali Congress where he is likely to be a presidential candidate. So you can be sure he is not going to make any earthshaking breakthrough before autumn.

A government that lacks the self-confidence of enforcing its own laws is less likely to opt for the negotiating table. Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala may chant the mantra of talks, but look at where he has put the money: in an expensive para-military force trained by the army and equipped with automatic weapons. If home-made bombs and vintage .303 rifles cause such mayhem already, the casualty rates from AK-47s are sure to go up.

Making peace is easier when attitudes exist which reinforce peace. The atmosphere in the country is quite the contrary. The extreme right wants the King back where the action is.  Intellectuals sing paeans in praise of democracy, but show little patience for political leaders and end up undermining the system.

With the population growing at 2.5 percent, and the economy at only about 3.9 percent annually, Nepal has a large pool of unemployed youths who have nothing to lose, and will take up guns at the slightest instigation. The situation is already so bad that even if Comrade Prachanda were to ask his band of desperados to lay down arms as part of a peace deal, there may be many who will still defy him for want of an alternative occupation.

But peace still has a chance, for the simple reason that nothing else ever works. Comrade Prachanda must realise that he has already made a point by exposing the shards of an unjust society: oppressed citizens who are ready to risk all because they hardly have anything anyway. And it should be clear to Sher Bahadur Deuba that his political future hinges on the outcome of his talks with the Maoists. If he succeeds, he will hailed as a saviour. (A failure is unlikely to disappoint his detractors inside his party—they seem to be taking that outcome as forgone conclusion.))

Making peace is no less important for Prime Minister Koirala. There can hardly be a more fitting last hurrah for a man who has spent nearly six decades fighting for democracy and in active politics. Deputy Prime Minister Ram Chandra Paudel has earned his spurs by negotiating successfully with stubborn opposition parties. If he wants to reach where he believes he is destined to reach, he has to use those skills in getting the Maoists out of the terraces to the table.

But don’t hold your breath. Serious peace efforts are unlikely to emerge until and unless the crisis of leadership in Nepali Congress is over. For that to happen, the party convention needs to take place in November.

There is an old Nepali proverb which says: “When the hut is on fire the fire-fighters wait for the auspicious astrological time to put it out.” That kind of sums up the state of affairs inside the Nepali Congress.  The long-suffering people of Nepal will have to exercise some more of that great gift which they have historically shown to have in plenty: patience. (Upload date: June 30/00)  

Patan Amasses Tourist Stash
Salil Subedi

The Lalitpur Sub-metropolitan City has raised over seven million rupees from tourist fees in the past six months, but the town's long-suffering residents are getting  impatient about where and when the money will be spent to improve urban services.

 Since January, Patan followed Bhaktapur's example and began charging Rs200 ($3) as entry fee from foreign tourists. Faced with criticism, the municipality had said the money would be used to restore monuments and clean up historic squares, and the local environment.

It wants the money to be a part of a fund to finance diverse project it plans to undertake with the German-supported Urban Development through Local Efforts (UDLE) project.

"We'll use the money on an equal-contribution basis with UDLE in a project  to be initiated soon," said Babu Raja Maharjan, the head of city's International Relation Section. "The more we can put in, the better because UDLE will add the same amount as matching grant,. So far we haven't touched
a single penny from the ticket sales."

Sources at UDLE said it had agreed to provide Rs 6 million into a Rs12 million project involving activities to conserve, preserve, restore and clean the city. Part of the fund is to be used to spread awareness about community role in sustainable conservation.

 But locals are so far blissfully unaware of the plans, and haven't seen a noticeable improvement in the town since the fees went into force. "There has been no big change, they have not even done little things that would not have cost much money," said Rajendra Shakya, a local shopkeeper.

"Picking waste on time, increasing the number of bins and teaching the municipal police to behave properly with both tourists and locals are some things that can be done by the municipality," he added.

 Foreign tourists visiting Patan are required to pay Rs200 for which they can visit all public temples and squares in the municipality--except the Golden Temple and the Patan Museum, which require separate fees. 

The entry fees are collected at five strategically placed check-posts and one on the Durbar Square. The municipality also employs staff to check and ensure that tourists on the square have valid tickets.

 Since January, more than 34,000 visitors from the west and other SAARC countries have visited Patan during the last six months. The Golden Temple charges an additional Rs 25 and Rs 120 as entrance charge.

 "I don't mind paying for such a good cause," said an Austrian tourist at Durbar Square. "But I don't like to be asked for tickets at every step."

 He adds: "Municipal authorities need to tell the guards to be cool with tourists, stop bothering them with multiple ticket checking and funny questions."

 The ticket counter staffs cannot be blamed because they were put on the job without adequate training and orientation on handling tourists. Said one:"We try our best to communicate with them but we sometimes face problems because we don't know much English."

 "There seems to be confusion on what the municipality is trying to do," said Jala Krishna Shrestha, Director of the Patan Museum. "Otherwise what is stopping them from doing little things?"

 Shrestha has his reason to be angry. The municipal ticket rechecking post was placed at the entrance of the museum, which meant that every tourist visiting the museum could be rechecked at its gates, and pay another fee.

 Only after spending much time and effort did Shrestha manage to convince municipal officials to move the rechecking post further away.

 "They have raised much money. Now they have to spend some of that on little things like cleanliness, which could make a big difference," Shrestha adds. (Upload date: June 30/00)

More Bad Press for RA

On the eve of Royal Nepal’s 42nd anniversary, a prestigious international business newspaper has published an article severely criticising the airline’s international service.

“Royal Nepal Treats Passengers like Peasants,” is the title of the recent WSJ article.

In the story, Miriam Jordan, the New-Delhi based reporter of the Wall Street Journal recounts her experience with Royal Nepal flights in and out of Kathmandu, telling just how bad its services have become.

“As a long-time resident of India, I have endured some painful trips on other carriers,” she writes. “But Royal Nepal's disdain for its passengers' needs went beyond the bounds of normal delays and tattered airport lounges,” she adds.

Jordan’s revelation is nothing new to long-suffering Nepali passengers who have similar horror stories to tell but did not have access to international media.

Royal Nepal officials say its infamous delays are due lack of enough aircraft—its nights flights to New Delhi are notoriously late—but every decision it has made to lease one has been embroiled in allegations of rampant corruption.

Privately Royal Nepal managers say there is too much government interference in the management of the company especially in decisions about aircraft purchase or hire.

“We always listen carefully to what our well-wishers have to say about us and take proper measures to solve their complaints and comments,” Hari Bhakta Shrestha, executive chairman of Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation said in an interview in the Kathmandu Post published Saturday. “Once the aircraft issue is solved, the complaints will be minimal,” he adds. 

Nepali Times brings you the full text of the WSJ story in order to help inform RA decision makers about just how bad its services have become:

Royal Nepal Airlines Treats Passengers Like Peasants
By MIRIAM JORDAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Nepal, the Times of India newspaper said recently, is a land where one can feel "suspended in time and space."

Unfortunately, that is also how Royal Nepal Airlines has been making its passengers feel on their way in and out of the Himalayan kingdom.

The service-quality problem became acute after an Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu was hijacked on Christmas Eve. One Indian was killed during the incident, which ended a week later on New Year's Eve after New Delhi freed three jailed Kashmiri separatists. Indian Airlines then suspended all flights to Nepal.

In late April, I had to visit Kathmandu on business. So, my only option was state-owned Royal Nepal. My 8:15 p.m. flight left New Delhi at 1:50 a.m. Though the actual flight time is little more than an hour, it was nearly 4 a.m. by the time I straggled into my hotel in Kathmandu.

A few days later, on my last day in Nepal, I called Royal Nepal to check on the status of the 6 p.m. flight to New Delhi. The airline had told my hotel that the flight was on time. When I pressed an airline official for the expected departure time, he told me it was delayed -- he guessed by an hour and a half. "But you still must check in at 4 p.m.," he added, despite my protests.

Chaos at the Airport

My taxi driver, Indra Badur, advised in broken English, "Better go early. Even confirmed ticket, you get no place." He set off for the airport, dodging cows as he sped down alleyways.

The chaos at the airport proved him right. Economy-class passengers had been bumped off the flight, and an airline official told me, "It's full. No seats." Thank goodness I had decided to pay an extra $28 to fly business class. When I informed the official, he grabbed my ticket and rushed to the last counter, where Nepalese were clamouring to buy the last few business-class seats. I was relieved to be handed my boarding pass.

Then the wait began. Other travellers hadn't been told about the delay--even when they checked in. The only departure-information panel was switched off. At 6:10 p.m., a loudspeaker blared that the flight would depart at 7:30 p.m.

Passengers flocked to the duty-free liquor shop, as well as the snack bar and candy stand. A German couple sitting next to me peeled bananas and stuffed them between slices of white bread.

I headed for Royal Nepal's business-class lounge -- for a second time. It was still locked; a cockroach patrolled the doorframe.

Finally, the flight lifted off at 8:40 p.m. The woman sitting next to me, Rita Singh, appeared tense. She had cut short her Nepal visit upon hearing that her husband was hospitalised after being injured in a car accident back home in Canada. Now, she was in danger of missing her Air India connection to Bombay and then to New York en route to Toronto.

Mrs. Singh's chances weren't looking good: Not only were flights out of India stuffed to the gills, but the Royal Nepal staff also wasn't helping her get a message to Air India, or, after landing in New Delhi, rushing her to the front of the line at passport control.

Three days later, Mrs. Singh called me. She was still in New Delhi, staying at a hotel at her own expense. Neither airline was moved by her plight.

"Everyone has problems, madam," she recalls an Air India representative as saying.

Turning to Private Carriers

On May 16, work took me to Nepal again. Indian Airlines flights were still suspended. This time, Royal Nepal took off just 90 minutes behind schedule.

The next day, I flew Buddha Air, a private, domestic Nepalese airline, to a small town in southwestern Nepal. The flight left on time. Two days later, I returned to Kathmandu on private carrier Necon Air, and again the flight was on time.

Later that day, it was back to Kathmandu airport for a Royal Nepal flight that I have been told was on time. At the check-in counter, an airline official wasn't so sure. "Let's hope," he said. "The aircraft is here."

This time, the information panel was operating, and my flight's estimated departure time read 6 p.m. But after the appointed hour, we still waited for a boarding announcement. The information panel went on the blink.

No airline official was in sight. The flight eventually departed at 8:40 (just like my last journey). This time, my neighbour on the flight missed his train to Jaipur.

As a long-time resident of India, I have endured some painful trips on other carriers. But Royal Nepal's disdain for its passengers' needs went beyond the bounds of normal delays and tattered airport lounges.

Airline officials blame bad weather, technical problems and a small fleet of aircraft -- the airline has only three planes -- for the persistent delays.

"We hope to start operating one more Boeing in July," says N.R. Sharma, administrative manager for the airline in New Delhi.

Adding to the urgency for Royal Nepal, travellers once again have a choice. Indian Airlines resumed service to Nepal on June 1.

Rasul Bailay contributed to this article. (Upload date: July 1/00)

Post-Mortem of Cargo Jet Crash

A series of human errors caused the crash of a Lufthansa Cargo aircraft soon after takeoff one year ago from Kathmandu airport which killed five people, according to a report prepared by a group investigating the accident.

The Boeing 727 slammed on Chandragiri Range less than three minutes after taking off loaded with carpets.  The report blamed the pilots who died in the crash and Kathmandu’s Air Traffic Control (ATC). The air traffic controllers who were on duty that day are still at their jobs at Kathmandu’s radar centre.

The commission, made up of senior legal and aviation officials from Nepal, India and Germany was explicit about the mistakes made by the pilots, who strayed off the standard instrument departure course.

The air traffic controllers at the radar, who should have warned the pilots that they were two miles off course, failed to do so.

Narendra Kumar Shrestha, a senior government lawyer who headed the commission, said there was simply no one around at the radar screens to warn the pilots. “The shifts were being changed at the time,” Shrestha said.

ATC had cleared flight DLH 8533 to fly “Dharke I-A” Standard Instrument Departure, which requires all departing aircraft to make a tight climbing turn within a four-mile arc from the airport. After reaching 7,500 feet, the planes then have to turn due west to head out of the valley. Instrument departures allow planes to clear the mountains on the valley rim even when visibility is bad.

“Pilots know that flying beyond four miles is to invite death,” said Shrestha.

The 727 is a older-generation airplane that does not have the higher rates of climb of more recent models. Therefore, 727s carry out the “Dharke I-B” departure, which entails a cork-screw turn above the airport.

But on July 7, 1999 the pilots of the ill-fated plane decided to take a “Dharke I-A”. The reason is not clear, usually this is done if the plane is not fully loaded. But the investigation revealed that the plane was 24 hours late on arrival and there was a further two-hour delay on departure from Kathmandu.

Further, the American captain and the co-pilot were flying only for the second time together to Kathmandu, and both pilots were in a hurry for appointments with family members in Dubai and Delhi. The aircraft was jointly operated by Lufthansa and India’s Hinduja company.

The investigation also blamed “inadequate intra-cockpit crew coordination and communication and the incorrect and slow response to the initial and subsequent GPW (ground proximity warning) system” about 36 seconds before impact.

What this means is that the plane was unable to gain height, possibly because of a steeper-than-usual right bank after takeoff, and pilots were busy trying to get the airspeed up after the GPW warning when the anti-stall stick-shake activated 11 seconds later.

The plane hit the mountain at 7,235 ft while falling at 250 ft per minute and in 34degree right-bank turn. The accident was technically a “controlled flight into terrain”. Police located the plane several hours after the crash but there were no survivors.

Aviation experts say that although the death toll in the accident was not high, the disaster has important lessons for other regular airline flights out of Kathmandu with full loads of passengers.

“We have to get to the bottom of the Lufthansa crash to prevent more serious accidents in future,” said one Nepali aviation expert. “And the key question here is why were the controllers at the radar not able to warn the pilots that they were straying beyond four miles.”

The investigation also concluded as much: “No advisory alert was given by the Approach Controller to the crew when the aircraft deviated from the SID.”

The report makes the following observations about Kathmandu ATC:

 -          Arrange relief breaks with overlapping duty periods of ATCs

-          Emergency radio frequencies which are out of order should be fixed

-          ATC’s audio recording was not serviceable on July 7, it should be fixed.

-          Approach radar screens should have a clearly-marked 4-mile arc.

-           All controllers must use headsets during their hot chair position.

-          Intercom facilities should be restored within the ATC.

(Upload date: July 2/00)

Bimal Nibha is one poet who intentionally reaches out to a living, breathing audience by understanding the everyday language of his readers and allowing them to understand his. In Slipper, below, he speaks, in an unassuming and perplexed voice, of the difficulty of living in dignity more than a decade after the establishment of democracy. He neither lectures to his readers nor purports to feel more deeply than they-a fatal flaw in much progressive writing. Instead he finds a voice that is natural but also deeply evocative, quiet, questioning and occasionally fanciful. What results is an
expression of Nepal's present politics which is fresh and capable of surprising us with its artfulness.

SLIPPER
Bimal Nibha

After many days I've thought of
Baburam Bhattarai
I wonder where he might be
as I try to sew back
the broken strap of my slipper
at this hour

With this slipper on my foot
I must reach my place of work
at the office of the weekly newspaper
(Today is Thursday, no less)
There's much I need to accomplish
I must finish a write-up
(locked away half-done in my drawer)
I must hunt for fresh news
in the wilderness of politics
and comment on the increase
in the price of petroleum products
Concluding everything
with a forceful editorial
I must return home at evening time
where I'm being awaited impatiently
(A husband and father are being awaited there)

Shoving a few of today's papers
and all my weariness into my bag
as I hurry home I know I'll cross
my fellow poets by the ancient Bodhi tree
They'll ask-What's in the news, Mr. Editor?
In response I'll say-Everything's fine
The parliament and daily power cuts
are moving on course in the country
The Congress Party is inside the government
The communist parties are standing outside
Aggressive microorganisms
are burgeoning everywhere in the flow 
The yellow frogs of monarchism are croaking
The price of potatoes hoarded
in warehouses is doubling
And this morning the strap of my slipper broke
Hearing my account my fellow poets will propose-
Well, then, let's have a cup of tea each!

But I won't want to have tea
as usual in the poet's corner
Today I'll be running late
(This is invariably so: the sun will descend, night will fall)
because the strap on my slipper
snapped in the middle of the road
(It had gotten quite frayed with use)
and I've suddenly recalled
Comrade Baburam Bhattarai
busy leading the People's War
I, dragging along in my broken slippers
am wondering-as are many others
I'm an ordinary person
who writes the news who writes poems
who drinks tea and rushes off
a worker who delights and weeps
with ardor and with effort
(Nothing exceptional about me)

Am I not also engaged in a people's war, Comrade?
This poem was taken from Mulyankan 58. Nibha's poems are also found in his 1984 collection Aagonira Ubhieko Maanchhe. (Upload date: July 3/00)

New Roads' Board Bill 
Binod Bhattarai

Sick of road-blocks at every village on Nepali highways extorting money from passing vehicles? Sick of potholes, damaged bridges and landslides?

There may be a change afoot as Parliament debates a bill this week seeking to create a Board to take charge of road maintenance all over Nepal.

This is the second time that the bill is being tabled by the Minister of Water Resources, Works and Physical Planning. The earlier bill became defunct after the sudden end of the 17th session of parliament earlier this year due to increasing animosity between the Congress and UML.

The Roads' Board Bill seeks to create a11-member board comprising of representatives of different ministries and private sector organisations such as the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FNCCI) and the Nepal Association of Travel Agents.

Other private representatives proposed are a representative from the Nepal Engineers Association, Transport Workers' Associations, consumer's groups, farmers and an individual with experience in roads construction and maintenance.

 The "self-governing" Board would be entrusted with authority to levy charges to raise funds and to oversee road maintenance. Its charges would include road use fees, tolls on fuel used by vehicles, different fees based on vehicle capacity, etc.

The Board would also have authority to impose fines, cancel vehicle registration and even recommend the cancellation of vehicle operator licenses for non-compliance.

According to the Bill, the Board would be authorised to frame specific rules for ensuring proper road maintenance but these would have to be approved by the government prior to implementation.

The annual maintenance cost needed for the upkeep of Nepali roads is estimated at Rs1.3billion, the network itself is valued at Rs 60 bn. The government allocation for maintenance this year is Rs 480 m.

One of argument for making maintenance effective through the creation of the Board is that a rupee spent on improving roads can help save up to Rs300 in the upkeep of each vehicle. Maintaining all roads would also create 50,000 jobs for 150 days each year.

By 10 years the Board's work could end the need for the government to pay for the upkeep of roads, the Bill says. It is also estimated that the government's spending on road maintenance could come down from Rs480 m to Rs 310 m within a year. (Upload date July 5/00)

Parrots as Pundits
C.K Lal

If there is one lesson from history it is this: a society that refuses to change is forced to do so. And whether change is for the better or for worse  depends on the quality of debate within society.

Debates in the public sphere spark new ideas, inspire dedicated research and lead to committed activism. Knowledge grows. Leaders can make intelligent choices, and chart change towards a desired goal, through a preferred route.

But if this debate is based on distorted data, motivated analysis and prompted conclusions then the purpose of debate is defeated. It becomes a tool to justify conventional wisdom. It perpetuates the status quo, and ultimately invites the use of force to bring social change.

Factors that stifle genuine debate are many. In a situation of overwhelming fear nobody dares question the established norm. Walls have ears, and you glance over your shoulder before you say anything.

Then there is human greed—ever present, always insatiable. This is when being a conformist pays: and it pays well if the paymasters are entrenched interests like government in power, multinational corporations or foreign agencies.

The dividend from an intelligent debate accrues to the whole society. While the pay-off in keeping it contained are purely personal.

In hierarchical and fatalistic societies like ours, one other reason for stifled debate is the intellectual laziness of intelligentsia. Vibrant debate needs to be fuelled as much by academic research as by providing a platform for intellectual duels between divergent views.

We consider knowledge as a form of give-and-take, a transaction of ‘revealed truth’ between guru and shishyak (master-apprentice). Research therefore has little relevance. Those who control society are afraid of being  put under the prying eyes of researchers. Such a culture of conformism has spawned thousands of prizes for past achievements, but there are not many grants support research to extend the frontiers of knowledge.

“There must be a reason why we have not been able to produce a single authoritative expert of academic excellence and intellectual integrity on either the Bhutanese refugee issue or on Maoist insurgency—two of the most important political challenges of our times, one external and other internal—in all these years,” wonders Kanak Mani Dixit, editor of Himal South Asia (see www.kantipuronline.com) . Similar questions can be raised about Indo-Nepal Relations, Relevance of Economic Liberalisation, Dependence on Conditional Foreign Assistance.

The answer, my dear Kanak, is fairly simple. Why go beyond the obvious when accepting the apparent is more rewarding, a lot less complicated, and clearly a much safer option? When waddling in the cesspool of established ‘facts’ is accepted as a mark of scholarship and intellectual competence, only a fool will choose to jump into a choppy uncertain sea of questions.

It is our intellectual lethargy that turns armchair analysts into playdough  in the hands of all kinds of vested interests—commercial, political, religious. We are made to repeat slogans as maxims. Clichés are offered to us as theories, and we accept them with humility, thanking our manipulators for their supposed munificence.

Media becomes a handmaiden of self-perpetuating myths serving up magnified portions of motivated opinion. Gullible consumers of that information, we shape our ideas based on these concocted ‘facts’.

Mass media then becomes merely an apparatus for the mass multiplication of “establishment views” in the garb of “established truth”. One example is  orchestrated propaganda about the supposed benefits of privatisation.

Readers, listeners and viewers have to become discerning, demanding and judgmental. That is the only way to guard against parrots pretending to be pundits, and high priests of media reciting the mainstream mantra. We have become far too tolerant of mediocrity. Let’s be less polite about it. 

If you readers continue to be so forgiving, we’ll always be stuck in this rut.  By the way, if you think this piece is horse manure, get up and say so. Call a spade a bloody shovel. (Upload date: July 5/00)  

Woman to woman
Jasmine Rajbhandary

Women are almost always victimised by men, right? Wrong.

People still tend to assume women to be more trustworthy, loyal and morally upright than men, but human beings it seems will be human beings, regardless of sex. Which is to say, a woman can no more expect to be safer in the hands of another female stranger than if she were with a man.

I have come to this conclusion after several distressing incidents involving Didis in Blue at the Tribhuvan International Airport. In the first episode last year, I had cleared immigration and collected my bag after getting it x-rayed when the only policewoman on duty asked me to step for ekai-chhin. She then drew a curtain around us at the side of the hand luggage check and began the usual body search. When she came across my wallet, she started fumbling through it and asking me where I was going.

My flight was already boarding by then, but she persisted with her inquisition until she finally came to her point: "You are going to visit family for Dashain, what about giving me some chiya paisa for my Dashain?"  I was furious, and pushed my way out of the curtains.  (hassled I hope I don't bump into her at the airport again, or I will surely be.)

After another similar incident, I was at TIA again recently. Given my past experiences I was vigilant and kept my handbag (with money in it) outside the curtained female body search area, placing it atop a nearby windowsill. I thought I'd finally had the situation licked, but the policewoman spotted my bag after doing the body pat-down. She took the purse from the windowsill and soon began the now familiar litany of questions while her hands were on my wallet. It was only after I mentioned that my Dai was with me, and she double checked that he was right outside, when she let me go.  I'm notsure if this incident would have led to more chiya paisa or not, but it sure felt like it could have.

I would dare to say that almost every female in Nepal at some time or another has felt unsafe, insecure or uncomfortable in her surroundings and those in it. But lately it is not   only the men who are provoking these feelings. These days, it is other women, too. Of course we've heard of the horror stories of the abusive mothers- and sisters-in-law. But with more women becoming figures of authority, the cases of women exploiting women are bound to rise.

At the TIA, for instance, policy makers - presumably men - determined that women need their privacy while they are being "body-checked" in the intensified security following the December hijacking. Hence the need for curtains. Men, in comparison, get checked right in the open. But this attempt at giving women privacy may have just made them more vulnerable to extortion. The official thinking may be that a police woman would do no wrong because she is a woman. 

If you were to ask me if would I prefer an "in-depth" body check in an open public space instead of behind curtains, I would still hesitate to say yes. But after being victimised by fellow-women, I am not so sure anymore. (Upload date: July 8/00)

The reason is within
C. K. Lal

Niru Shrestha is used to sashaying down the ramp, but these days, she is more often found on an airport runway.

Most passengers flying Buddha Air’s Raytheon-Beech 1900D aircraft are surprised to see a woman at the controls, but they would be even more surprised if they knew their pilot was a former Miss Nepal.

Shrestha won the title in 1998, while she was still in flying school. She is now probably the only ex-beauty queen in the world who is also a commercial airline pilot. The 21-year-old has just clocked 800 commercial flying hours at the controls, and will be captain once she reaches 3,000. 

Shrestha used to model as well. But she has not had much time for that lately. Almost every day, she is on the right seat in a Buddha Air cockpit. One of her favourite trips is the early morning sightseeing flight from Kathmandu to Mount Everest.

Says Niru: “Passengers come up to me often, both Nepalis and foreigners, and say they feel proud to see a woman flying them. I also like what I am doing.”

But despite a job that takes her up to the skies, Shrestha keeps her feet on the ground. One of her many interests is in social service and she has been actively helping the home for the elderly in Pashupati. (upload date: July 13/00)

Bakery at the end of the galaxy
Salil Subedi

If you are looking for some of the best bakeries in Nepal, you  probably won't find them in Kathmandu. You will have to trek to the Manang Valley behind the Annapurnas.

You may end up breathless after traveling for days and ending up at 3,000 m. On the last day of your trek, after walking six straight hours, your pace may quicken as you try to reach Manang village before nightfall. Before you know it, the aroma of freshly baked cinnamon rolls will waft through the cold thin air. 

Great bread awaits you in Manang (Pic: S. Subedi)

As you get closer, you will also be able to make out the delicate smells of brownies, breads and even hot pizzas. You steer with your nose and let the smell guide you into the village and along narrow, inclined cobblestone streets.

Sure enough, the olfactory signals take you to Bharka Bakery. Inside, the smell of hot bread mixed with brewed coffee is cosy, dry and warm. This place would be unique even in Thamel, but here at the edge of the galaxy, it is out of this world.

Tensing Gurung owns Bharka Bakery. He is used to the surprised smiles of tired trekkers who stumble in. "I don't have to drag my customers in, the smell does that, and once inside, they are glued to the cakes and bakes," he says.

In the past few years, bakeries have been sprouting like muffins across the Manang Valley. But the record-holder and pioneer must be Mesong Gurung, who 10 years ago set up a bakery right on top of Thorung La at 4,500 m.

In the laconic ways of the Manang people, Mesong understates his contribution: "There was no doubt that a bakery would do well in this remote valley. The only problem is the transport of flour." All of it comes from Pokhara and is transported from from Besisahar by mules.

The online guide, yetizone.com, also has some nice things to say about the bakeries in Manang: "The cakes in here are absolutely world class. The coffee is heavenly.

Moving up from Bharka to Manang, you are greeted by more bakeries. Since the monsoon has already arrived, the trekking  traffic has thinned, but this is possibly the best time to be in Manang since the rains don't really reach up here and there are fewer crowds.

The bakery's only problem is the seasonality of the trekking traffic. "We need to have other businesses running side by side, we can't depend just on the bakery," says Karma Gurung of the Tilicho Hotel.

About 10,000 trekkers on the Annapurna circuit visit Manang every year during the two seasons: March-May and September-November. (Upload date: July 14/00)