For
@Himalistan
, I wrote about our trek to remote, beautiful, and fascinating Makalu-Barun basecamp last autumn--and the burgeoning phenomenon of "Trekking While Nepali."
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Being a popular singer doesn’t mean you know urban planning. Being a good scientist doesn’t mean you grasp political science. Being a beloved TV commentator doesn’t mean you understand governance. A bit of humility—and a willingness to consult experts—would really help.🇳🇵
My brilliant sister Tej and I were the original best friends forever (before my brilliant niece Maya came into this world and unseated me from position no. 1 in her heart). ❤️❤️❤️
For decades, I’ve hoped my father would write about his 60-year career in and out of Nepal’s government.
I’m so grateful to him &
@Haribthapa
for getting it done this year.
Rastra-Pararastra: Ektantradekhi Ganatantrasamma is out in late November from
@fineprintbooks
. ❤️
“Brahmins make up only 12.7% of Nepal’s population, but hold 70% of higher jobs in civil service. Janjatis are 32% of the population but have less than 2% of senior positions. Dalits make up 15%, but are even less represented, with only 0.7% of special and gazetted jobs.”
Apropos of nothing: I’m so proud of not being married. Not to brag or anything, but it’s a rare South Asian woman who manages that. I’ve worked very hard not to get married. Of course I’m happy for others who get married if they want to. I’m just so glad I never have.
💃🏽
I’m so proud of my mother
@bheribas
for all she’s done and continues to do for public health in Nepal. (And I’m thankful for all the work trips she took us kids along on.) 💕 Here she is with the Distinguished Alumna Award she got this year from her alma mater,
@JohnsHopkinsSPH
.
My parents have been married for 58 years today! Heroic. (I mean that in a good way.) 😊
Happy anniversary to Aama-Ba, locked down in Kathmandu in style! 💕
Forgive me if I post a lot about my father’s memoir. It’s been ten years in the making, interrupted by family tragedies. It might never have happened—but it did. I’ll be partying for the rest of the year. #राष्ट्रपरराष्ट्र
As a non-white teenager growing up in a racially divided Washington DC, I learned early to recognize white supremacy as a founding principle of the US. It took me years, however, to recognize caste supremacy as one of the founding principles of my own country, Nepal.
For someone who worried she’d never be published, and that she’d lose her way as a writer after moving mid-career from Nepal to Canada, this is a very sweet moment. I’m deeply moved and honoured to be on this list. 🌺
Meanwhile, I see that India and Nepal have chosen this time to ratchet up tensions along the border.
I called my dad, a diplomat, for a quick explainer and asked him, "So--what's the solution?"
"Diplomacy," he said.
Oh lord. Yuck.
Nepal brought in this law earlier too, in the late 1990s, I think—it was swiftly challenged, and didn’t last. But its revival shows that the governing class has never stopped fantasising about exerting total control over women.
New rule requiring women under 40 to take approval from family, local ward office to go abroad draws criticism
Social media users call it a regressive move, saying the decision deprives women of their agency and limits their right to free movement.
Happy birthday to my dad on your Nepali (lunar calendar) birthday. Not in my wildest dreams could I have wished for a better father. We’ve all been so lucky to have you. ❤️
This photo is from his 84th birthday a few years back. Till we can celebrate in person again!
My parents are incredible people.
It's been a year since we lost my sister Tejshree.
I took the year off, spending as much time as possible with family as a way to heal. (Their companionship has helped so much. I finally feel, a year on, that I can begin to process the loss.)
Nepal hates women. (Not the country, or all of its citizens, but the state). The state hates women. I’ve never regretted burning the 2015 constitution’s unequal citizenship provisions and giving up my citizenship. I encourage other women to do so if it’s an option. Be free.
The 1st woman President of Nepal has refused to fulfil her constitutional duty to endorse a twice-tabled bill on citizenship rights. Her objection is not that it grants too few rights to women as compared to men—which it does—but because it grants women too many rights.
We celebrated my dad’s 84th birthday on a bright, sunshiny day in Kathmandu a few years back. I wish I were there to celebrate his latest one today! Happy birthday to the man who gave me everything.
So much love. ❤️❤️❤️
I really miss my dad. (It’s no secret I take after him physically and temperamentally: I’ve always been a daddy’s girl.) Happy Father’s Day to him. First thing we’ll do once all the travel restrictions ease is plan a reunion. ✈️ ❤️
Nepal is trying to make its horrible citizenship laws even worse, requiring proof of gender reassignment operations before recognising trans identities, denying foreign women married to Nepalis of economic rights for seven years.
Is the country governed by idiots? Serious Q.
@kishorenepal
I’m so sorry to see someone of your stature unable to understand basic human rights principles such as equality between all citizens, no matter their gender. What a shock. (Remind me, were you not a voice for liberalism at one point?)
The caste system + misogyny = why I'm not Hindu.
(I know you can be Hindu and oppose bigotry. I just couldn't disentangle religion from social practice, not from age 14 on, when I began to understand.)
The Wayward Daughter by Shradha Ghale is The Great Kathmandu Novel we’ve all been waiting for! I was thrilled to get into Kathmandu in time for the launch yesterday, and honoured to be asked to be part of the celebration.
I'm so pleased to see my translation of Indra Bahadur Rai's novel, There's a Carnival Today, among
@calmandfearless
's recommendations on Himalayan literature. (And I can't wait to read Ed's latest book.)
I won’t lie, it’s been an emotionally difficult time being in Kathmandu, in the house I grew up in with my siblings Bhaskar and Tej, both now gone. They shaped me. I’m so 🙏🏼 that I can continue my relationship with them through my nephews and niece, who are the best. 💕
If, as the Supreme Court has decreed, the Deputy PM & Home Minister Ravi Lamichhane isn’t Nepali citizen but he’s given up his American citizenship, does this mean he’s stateless? I’m genuinely puzzled.
So much Nepali history gets lost for lack of documentation. It is urgent for our elders to share what they’ve witnessed.
I will forever be grateful to those behind the release of this book on Nov 21:
@BhekhT
@bheribas
@binsija
@Haribthapa
Basanta Thapa
@fineprintbooks
& IIDS.
I cannot* believe that Nepal's political parties are focusing on power struggles in parliament while the country is in the throes of a humanitarian crisis.
*unfortunately, can.This is all they ever do.
Thirty-odd years after I stopped painting & two-and-a-half years after I resumed (during the first lockdown of the pandemic) I’ve received a grant from the Canada Council to write/paint my first mixed-media art book. It feels like a creative homecoming. I am so very grateful. ❤️
Yes I do wonder sometimes why my writing is focused squarely on trauma (caused by social and political forces) while my sketches are all pretty pictures. Anyway here’s my latest.
Okay, you can block me now.
It’ll be all family photos for the next week.
My main agenda when I come to Nepal is: spending so much time with my amazing parents that they’ll (silently) remember that old Nepali saying: “एक दिनको पाउना मिठोमिठो खा…”.
❤️
Caste supremacy & male supremacy are Nepal's founding principles, which the state still stands on. Thank you to the Dalit rights activists and intersectional feminists who are helping us talk honestly about this. I'm learning a lot from you.
A personal note. (Let’s keep these spaces personal—non-commercial—if we can?)
My brother Bhaskar would have been 60 years old today. He died at 49 without ever reaching his 50s.
My sister Tej died at 52.
Some days it destroys me that I, the youngest of three, outlive them.
In 1979, my लोग्ने, Dr. Bhekh B Thapa had started a NGO-International Institue of Integrated Development Studies in a humble rented room, now a major think tank.Offer our grateful appreciation to the current IIDS leaderships for honouring him by dedicating a building in his name.
On the day Canada legalizes cannabis, my thoughts are with the villagers of Rolpa, who had to destroy their crops under a USAID-backed Nepal government initiative in the 1970s. Rolpa went on to become the heartland of the Maoist uprising. There you have it: international aid.
Close family and friends know that I was already grief-struck when the pandemic started. I spoke to Dr Brian Goldman of
@cbcwhitecoat
, & wrote for the first time about my losses—& how I’ve found my way back to happiness by painting.
Laxmi Puja is first, for me, my sister Tej’s birthday. She would have been 54 years old today. We celebrated her life by lighting lamps in Kathmandu and Toronto. 💕
This article by
@ShresthaSubina
gives a sense of the situation in Nepal. It's heartbreaking, but we need to find a way through it. (Nepalis are the most incredible people, but they're governed by the least incredible people.) Let's find ways to help.
Here we go!
Friends, if you’re free on Friday April 8, please come to the launch of Eklai Eklai,
@UPrasai
’s fabulous Nepali translation of my novel All Of Us in Our Own Lives, published by
@SangrilaBooks
. The launch will take place at the Urban Hub in Jawalakhel at 4pm.
If you get a chance to take in the
@christibelcourt
retrospective at the
@AGGuelph
, do it. It’s powerful and mesmerizing and beautiful and politically urgent.
Hello, when someone accuses a friend or family member of sexual misconduct, please don't set out to destroy the accuser's reputation. It takes immense courage to speak out. No one does it casually. Listen respectfully, and if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.
There are many things I’ll never forgive Nepal’s current government for, and one of them is not letting me know when I’ll next see my parents.
Open the goddamn airport, you cowards. Half of Nepal has family abroad.
I’m so proud of
@bheribas
: a trailblazing public health doctor, a feminist, & a fiercely loving mother. Her alma mater
@JohnsHopkinsSPH
, from where she obtained a Master’s in Public Health in 1965, awarded her a Distinguished Alumna Award this year. Congratulations, Aama!
♀️✨❤️
“It all began with bears and whores.” —
@bbhrikuti
&
@itisha
on the origins of their rocking feminist podcast,
@BojuBajai
. 30-odd episodes in, they’ve critiqued the Nepali media, society, & The Nepali Man, including the “Jadyaaha Rastrabaadi”—the drunkard nationalist. 💃🏽💃🏽
Nepali society tends to be homosocial: men socialise with men and women with women, the former with 1,000 times more mobility. I genuinely think that male organisers of panels don’t know women well enough to realise they’re just as or more intelligent than men. No excuses, but...
All of Us in Our Own Lives is my first novel to be translated into Nepali—I can’t wait to read Ujjwal Prasai’s translation! (Thank you to Mani Sharma and the team at Sangrila Books.) 🙏🏼
From the grief I've felt in the past years I know: if you're lucky, grief won't destroy you. But it will change you. Make sure it's for the better.
All the grief Covid is causing in South Asia will change individuals, families, society. Grieve, then change for the better. ❤️
Every now and then I come up with a list of seven or eight younger friends whom I'm convinced are
@tirimiridai
, then I remember that there are lots of witty, astute people in Nepal I don't know at all.