Kathmandu Diary

Figure this one out: In ten years 12,000 Nepali lives were lost in the battlefor people’s power. Yet in nineteen days of protests, the king capitulatedafter barely 16 lives were lost. People in Kathmandu say this is because acritical mass has been attained, and people realise that change doesn’t happenbecause you put fancy words into the constitution. It happens because the peoplespontaneously will it through protests. On the first day of protests, April 6,Nepal’s two top comedians Madan Krishna Shresta and Hari Dhansa Acharya wenton air to say they were going to raise funds to treat the injured. Between themthey deposited Rs 1,00,000/- The very next day the account had become Rs 3,00,000/-.On day nineteen it stood at Rs 1.4 crore. And this was only in one fund, at theModel Hospital Kathmandu.

There were other signs that the king was losing grip on his people: In thefourteen months of direct rule the king had switched off the mobile telephoneservices four times. This he did to deny Nepal’s six lakh mobile telephonesubscribers the luxury of co-ordinating their action real time. Finally thetelecom authorities told the king that mobile services were essential servicesand the king would be taken to court for denying the country this essentialservice. Further, the telecom authority would seek compensation for every day ofrevenue loss. One week into the revolution, as people from outside Kathmandubegan to add to the numbers in the streets, the residents of Balaju and Gangoboudecided that they would not accept rent from those who were protesting, till suchtime as the protests continued. The doctors went on strike, to protest the waythe police were handling the crowds after the injured (of which there werearound 5,000) began to stream into the hospitals with head injuries. On thethirteenth day of protests, fourteen staff members of the Rastra Bank werearrested after they refused to cash a cheque made out by the home minister.Under the local laws, the home minister can apparently withdraw five lakh rupeesa day to hire vigilantes and launch a dirty war on the protesters. The bankemployees were thwarting this. Even the personal secretary to the home ministerwas arrested.

On the morning after the king called it quits, through the window of my hotelroom I saw that the armoured personnel carrier, usually parked at the head ofthe road, was no longer there. Neither were the blue camouflage uniformed policewho would take up positions before the daily curfew began. Across the road,where the brick wall of the Palace compound rose some nine feet high, there wereno troops save those in the sentry posts built behind the wall. Out on the road,I could see people in track suits, some walking, some jogging. I decided to takea walk around the outer perimeter wall of the palace, obscured from view bythick bamboo foliage. Through a crack in one of the massive doors to the palacecompound, I could see bunkers had been dug, and sandbags had been piled high.Soldiers jogged by my line of vision. As the road curved, I could hear the soundof a gong. A Buddhist monk sat, eyes closed, beating the gong under a cementcanopy next to a temple. Two girls sat by him listening. Nearby was a park. Ayoung boy was shadow-boxing vigorously. Around him were a handful of youthstretching their limbs. The sun glinted dully from the temple tank with itsgreen water where some women were washing clothes. It was all so normal. Noindication at all that an upheaval had occurred. As I sipped tea, I askedshop-owner whether he intended to celebrate the transition. He said: Sure, wewill celebrate later in the day and in the evening. But I am telling you inthree years we will be back to the same spot where we were when all this began."

In some time, Kathmandu is going to have a Peace Secretariat. It is going tobe located in the Delhi Bazaar where Bhojan Griha restauraunt caters to alargely foreign clientele serving local cuisine on floor level Japanese-styletables. You sit on cushions and eat organic food and drink off a low table. Therestaurant is on two floors of a building that used to belong to the head priestof Kathmandu’s Royal Palace. One half of the building is falling to an utterstate of disrepair. Apparently the South Africans were looking for a buildingwhere they could bring the seven sides of the conflict in Nepal together to talktogether. Their requirement was simple: They needed a building where they couldhave meals together as well. Anil Chitrakar, a tireless social entrepreneur whowears many hats – giving new life to Kathmandu’s ancient heritage is onlyone of them - showed them the Bhojan Griha and the South Africans did not wantto look any further. One half of the building will now have offices and theother half the restaurants. Between the two, they will pay for the renovationand upkeep of the building.

One of the many things Anil, an engineer by training, did was to designsomething called the solar tuki. Tuki in Nepali means a wicker lamp fashionedout of an inkbottle that works with kerosene. Picked from about 2600 entriesfrom more than 130 countries, it got the World Bank Global DevelopmentMarketplace Award last May. The solar tuki is a simple device that runs on anickel cadmium battery that gets charged through a small solar panel and has twowhite light LED light points and a radio as well. The new models will also havea mobile charger. When World Bank boss asked Anil why the tuki should get theaward, Anil told him: "You have defined poverty as one dollar a day. Here youhave two clean white lights and radio at ten cents a day. If you see anythingcheaper, please give them the prize". Wolfensen responded: "This is thefirst good news I have heard from Nepal." Anil had worked out the priceline:The Nepali in the target audience spends rupees seven a day on kerosene. Thesolar tuki, assembled in Nepal, costs Rs 3500 in microcredit. It is guaranteedfor five years and paid for in small installments in two years. A potential 2.4million people can use the tuki and in India the figure that Anil gave me is 78million. Globally, it is 2 billion people. Talk about thinking globally andacting locally.

Food economics in Nepal is remarkable. It is the steepest country in theworld, that rises up from 80 metres above the sea level in Jhapa on the east to8848 metres (Everest) in a span of 150 kms. Ninety per cent of Nepalis live inthe hill where sometimes it can rain between 300-400 mm in 48 hrs. In thevillages, you know if it has been a good year or a bad year by what they servetheir guests. You can tell a bad year if there are no men in the villages. Ifthere is just enough food they mix all the cereals into a porridge they calldheno. If the cereals are not enough, they will stretch it by making asemi-liquid food they call kholay. If the rain is good, the Nepali eats rice.Otherwise it is corn. If there is both rice and corn, the Nepali will also makealcohol at home from one of them.

This year is definitely a good year for the Nepali. I also partook of thecelebrations by drinking home brewed alcohol called Yela or Raksi. It is clearand potent, like tequila. For those who like to experiment here is how it isdone: When it is time to harvest rice in a good year, the old stock is taken outof the storage bins and fermented in batches in clay pots with yeast. Four dayslater you get very sweet white beer which you drink by dunking in your glassinto the ferment. Then the brew starts to go sour. At this point you heat thebroth by placing it in a big covered copper vessel. You condense the steam usingcold water in conical shaped vessel and and catch the condensation in a clay potplaced just inside the mouth of the copper vessel. You can get, I am told, upto44 per cent proof alcohol, depending upon the coldness of the water. I recommendit. Drink up, enjoy.