From HIMAL, Volume 1, Issue 2 (NOV/DEC 1988) By Sudhindra Sharraa and Kanak Mani Dixit In the chill of the evening by the banks of the Bhagirathi River near Uttar Kashi, the stars are beginning to show as Mahant Shankar Puri raises his voice in high pitched praise of Shiva, lord of the snows. It …
From HIMAL, Volume 1, Issue 2 (NOV/DEC 1988) John K. Locke, who edits Kailash in Kathmandu, says his main problem has always been with the printers. After a local press took seven months to publish one issue, he tried printing in Varanasi, then back again in Kathmandu, and is now planning to typeset in Kathmandu …
From HIMAL, Volume 1, Issue 2 (NOV/DEC 1988) Like mountain people elsewhere in the world, Himalayans have limited access to information. Radio stations and newspapers from from La Paz to Calcutta beam titillating news-of-the-moment up to the hills, but there is clearly a need to supplement the voices from the plains. This is where HIMAL …
From HIMAL, Volume 1, Issue 1 (July 1988) A Quest for Survival At the age of 16, Diwan Singh Bohra was forced to leave his village of Karan Karayal in Pithoragarh District of Uttar Pradesh. His father, Badri Singh, had only 10 bigah of degraded hilly land, which did not produce enough to support a …
From HIMAL, Volume 1, Issue 1 (July 1988) Careening on a auto-rickshaw around New and Old Delhi while researching our cover feature on migration, we discovered that you don’t need English, Hindi or Punjabi to ask directions in the Indian capital. Nepali will do. With thousands of men and boys from the Nepali hills now …
From HIMAL, Volume 0, Issue 0 (May 1987) Rabindra Thapa, 24, a community health worker associated with Save the Children (USA) is making his rounds through the communities of north Gork-ha. At the village of Archalay in Laku-ry Bot Panchayat, a five-year-old boy is clearly in the last stages of terminal pneumonia. He was breathing …
From HIMAL, Volume 0, Issue 0 (MAY 1987) The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has completed two years of operation and “is off and running”, according to its Director, Colin Rosser. The difficult ground-breaking activity is complete, he says, and the Centre is already into the “second phase” of its existence, carrying out …
From HIMAL, Volume 0, Issue 0 (May 1987) Pollution in Kathmandu Reported by Praksash Khanal and Anil Chitrakar and written by Kanak Mani Dixit Except perhaps some centuries ago, when town planners under the Mallas still had their say, the three urban centres of Kathmandu Valley have always been dirty. Stagnant sewers, mounds of solid …
From The Rising Nepal (May 15, 1975) – Courtesy MPP Archive It was the year 1852. An obscure peak deep in the frontier of Nepal and Tibet named Peak XV was found to be the highest in the world. It is a sad fact that the Sherpa name ‘of Chomolungma (Mother Goddess of the Earth) was not …
From The Rising Nepal (September 22, 1972) – Courtesy MPP Archive Half a century ago Rana Prime Minister Chandra Sumshere built for himself a summer resort at Godavari, a place tucked away in the extreme south-east corner of the Kathmandu Valley. He, like everybody else who has been there, was enchanted by Godavari which offers …