The Mountains Warn. The Rivers carry the Warning Prakash Dahal The Himalayas have this uncanny way of warning us and then making us pay through the nose for ignoring the warning. The August 26 calamity was merely the latest of several warnings we chose not to heed. But the facts now emerging make the August 26 catastrophe even more sinister. This was not simply a sudden flood; the kind of calamity Grandpa might have recounted as a grim tale to…
Born in the frozen heights of Tibet, the Bhotekoshi came roaring down through the Himalayas on August 26, its fury unleashing death and destruction on a scale Nepal had seldom, if ever, witnessed. The river did not merely flood. It came down like a wall. Water, ice, rock, mud and debris tore through the valley on August 26, sweeping away bridges, roads, buildings, vehicles and livelihoods. Buses and jeeps that normally carry people through this Himalayan corridor were tossed…
Born in the frozen heights of Tibet, the Bhotekoshi came roaring down through the Himalayas on August 26, its fury unleashing death and destruction on a scale Nepal had seldom, if ever, witnessed. The river did not merely flood. It came down like a wall. Water, ice, rock, mud and debris tore through the valley on August 26, sweeping away bridges, roads, buildings, vehicles and livelihoods. Buses and jeeps that normally carry people through this Himalayan corridor were…
With no fence or gate to keep them out, a gang of bulls, all horns and barrel-sized bellies, would come strutting into our roadside grassy yard, lumber down to the mango tree and park their hefty hunches in the shade, chewing their cud as if these belligerent beasts owned the little patch of land or had paid the rent, and behave as if this little yard were a geopolitical battleground! Each claiming it as their rightful territory! Then, God…
High above us, below the blue, behind the milky curtain of the Himalayas, a disaster is brewing—unseen by most, visited by few, understood by fewer, and met with the blissful ignorance of many. It is unfolding in a frozen wilderness that seems remote, silent, and eternal — serene on the surface, but changing furiously beneath it, like a quiet duck paddling frantically below the water. The glaciers are shrinking, the snow is sweating, and glacial lakes are swelling like…
A day or two ago, rocking gently on the swing on my terrace, in a balmy, breezy July evening, with a long train of thought rattling through my mind, the mind suddenly wandered to Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. There, only recently, a gathering of Gen-Z youngsters – and if memory serves me right and a few apolitical “roaches” scurrying around the commotion – had managed to put the Modi Government in Delhi on the back foot. What began as a…
No, not a Zen master, nor an Indian Guru, or a Tibetan monk! None of the likes! A MANGO, a KITE and bunch of COINs! Yes, they were the GREAT three teachers. They chose different segments of time – Dawn, Noon and Dusk – to deliver three TEACHINGS, separately, to me. It is those teachings that knocked the THING into the type and shape, if you like, that I am today. The MANGO taught me that a PURE WISH sans…
I know, not of course going by the mind route or groping around dark tunnel of consciousness, nor hobbling my way on a crutch of thoughts or flying on wings of imagination, that I have not yet discovered any such thing that I can confidently call ‘HAPPINESS’ with a certain degree of certainty. Or maybe, I have this congenital inability to know, sense, feel or recognize it. If that is the case, why am I talking shit and sowing thorns…
The word ‘psychology’ really fucks me up. In my days, the word psychology would seldom if ever escape lips of a person, these days everyone runs off at mouth about it. There’s been rush on schools teaching the trick of the mental trade like psycho-counseling, psycho-therapy, clinical counseling, CBT and all that jazz. Boys and girls moving mountains to get admission in schools of psychology think they are betting on right pony. Perhaps, they have put it into their head…
There is this question. Why do the rarest of the rare from the thing called ‘humans’ walk into the unknown in spite of everything the KNOWN has in store for them! Or, why do they strip away every layer of grandeur, glamour, and riches that they hitherto gloated about, treasured, and proud themselves on and go naked! One can hardly find an example of a ‘pauper’ or a ‘tramp’ taking on this type of journey which is empty of hope,…