In Kathmandu, a capital city that lacks basic sanitation facilities, an elderly man from the Tarai is forced to take a roadside leak. A local man pelts a stone and curses him. The next day, the same man humiliates the old man in front of his son by trying to publicly pull down his dhoti. The young […]

Tsering Wangmo Dhompa uses poetry because words don’t suffice. As the first Tibetan poetess to be published in English, she transcends language and the barriers of space and time to return to her Phayul, her father land. Her first book of poetry Rules of the House was published in 2002, and other books came thick and fast: My Rice […]

When Nepal opened up to the outside world in the 1950s and the first early tourists started coming in, they were mandatorily required to photograph cremations at Pashupati, monks in Boudha and monkeys on Swayambhu. The other must-see was the Kumari Temple, and the living goddess of Kathmandu soon became a subject of enduring fascination […]

Nepal’s slide began with the beginning of the insurgency 10 years ago and it was after the royal massacre of 1 June 2001 that things really started hurtling out of control. The person with a ringside seat to all this is Narayan Wagle, the journalist who rose up the ranks to become the chief editor […]